Kozhikode: The CPM's independent and influential MLA-businessman P V Anwar has been paring down his family landholdings even as the LDF government is trying to figure out for the past five years if he is squatting on excess or surplus land.

Onmanorama.com pored over court documents and election affidavits filed by the two-time Nilambur MLA in 2016, 2019, and 2021, and found that his family today owns 21.20 acres of land, nearly six acres less than what they had in 2019.

According to the 2016 election affidavit, Anwar owned nearly 198 acres spread across 14 plots, of which one non-agricultural land in Malappuram's Trikkalangode village he bought on June 18, 2009 was 175.81 acres.

That large tract of land (survey No. 62/241) was missing from his subsequent election affidavits filed in 2019 and 2021. The MLA's office said the entry was a clerical mistake, and the total landholdings should be read as around 20 acres.

In recent times - on October 29, 2021 - Anwar sold 90.3 cents at Koodaranji in Kozhikode district to one Shefeeq Alungal of Eranhimangad in Malappuram, according to a document by RTI activist K V Shaji in the High Court of Kerala.

Anwar bought the non-agricultural land in October 2015, as per the election affidavits filed in 2019 and 2021.

According to the Kerala Land Reforms Act of 1963, an individual can own only up to 7.5 acres; a family of two to five members can own up to 15 acres; and a family of more than five members can own up to 20 acres.

The government would consider any landholdings above the ceiling as excess land and would be taken away to be distributed among the landless.

Anwar would be in the clear of the land reforms law of the day because he owns only 21.20 acres. He has four children from his first wife Sheeja, and so they can legally own up to 20 acres. His second wife Afsath owns 3.83 acres.

According to the Land Reforms Act, the second wife would be considered as a separate family; so Anwar's family can legally own at least 35 acres of land.

Red tape puts govt in dock

RTI activist K V Shaji doggedly pursuing the surplus land case against Anwar in court and with the government since 2017 said the MLA owns more landholdings than he has declared in his election affidavits. "It will fall in the ambit of the Land Reforms Act," said Shaji, a landless resident of Malappuram.

The activist, however, refused to reveal the locations of the plots or the extent of the land, and said he would share the details only with the High Court.

The surplus land case dates back to 2017 when the collectors of Malappuram and Kozhikode gave two separate reports to the government saying Anwar prima facie owned excess land, according to Shaji.

Based on the reports, the State Land Board - tasked with finding and taking over excess land - in December 2017 directed the Thamarassery Taluk Land Board to register a case under the Kerala Land Reforms Act and initiate proceedings to take over the excess land.

When the Thamarassery Taluk Land Board, now known as Zonal Taluk Land Board, did not register a case for three years, Shaji moved to the High Court of Kerala in 2021.

In a judgment dated March 24, 2021, the High Court directed the Taluk Land Board to wrap up the proceedings in six months, that is by September 25, 2021.

But the Taluk Land Board did not initiate any step and Shaji filed a contempt of court petition the same year.

When the contempt case came up for hearing, the Taluk Land Board submitted an affidavit before the court that said Anwar owned 22.82 acres, and that it was taking steps to conclude the proceedings.

On January 1, 2022, the Taluk Land Board sought five more months to conclude all proceedings initiated against Anwar. The High Court granted it, setting the new deadline as July 2022. That deadline also whooshed by, despite Shaji sending two reminder letters to the Land Board to initiate the proceedings.

He then moved the High Court again this year to reopen the contempt of court case. When the court took up the case on July 11, the Taluk Land Board sought more time to conclude the proceedings.

The High Court denied it and asked the Land Board to explain in 10 days (by July 21) why the proceedings in the case against Anwar were not wrapped up by July 2022, Shaji's advocate Peeyus A Kottam told Onmanorama.

Frequent transfers at inquiry office raises questions

While pursuing the case, RTI activist Shaji found that the LDF government kept changing the chairperson of the Thamarassery Taluk Land Board, giving no official enough time to wrap up the case.

According to an RTI reply, the Taluk Land Board has seen 17 chairpersons in five years, that is each of the officials was on the hot seat for just around three months. Some chairpersons - usually a deputy collector from the Revenue Department - were transferred out from the post in 14 days and 20 days.

The cycle of rapid transfers started with Abraham N K, who was directed by the State Land Board in 2017 to register a case against Anwar under the Land Reforms Act, and initiate steps to identify and take over excess land, if any.

"If everything about Anwar's assets was so clean, why is the government transferring the Taluk Land Board chairperson so frequently? Why is the Board not concluding the process fast? In today's digital times, it won't take more than a week to find the landholdings of a person," said Shaji.

Anwar was not true to his affidavit

Anwar and his family's properties in Kerala are in three places: Trikkalangode and Perakamanna villages in Ernad taluk of Malappuram districts, and Koodaranji, a hill village in Kozhikode taluk on the border of Malappuram and Kozhikode districts. 

Anwar and his second wife Afsath own an amusement park: PeeVeeAar Nature Tourism Village at Koodaranji.

After he filed the affidavit for the 2016 Assembly election in Nilambur, Anwar and his family bought only one plot in their names, or at least according to the affidavits - 11 cents at Perakamanna, Anwar's hometown.

Yet, new survey numbers keep popping up in affidavits with back-dated purchase dates and old ones disappearing.

What happened in Trikkalangode...

In 2016, according to his self-declared election affidavit, Anwar had 187.1 acres spread across eight plots in Trikkalangode in Malappuram district of which one non-agricultural plot he bought in June 2009 was 175.81 acres (Survey No. 62/241). Another non-agricultural plot measuring 54.24 cents was bought in May 2009.

The 175.81-acre plot could have triggered the allegation that Anwar was squatting on excess land. Anwar did not respond to multiple calls and messages sent to his phone.

Anwar's personal assistant (PA) Sajeevan said the MLA's landholding appeared exaggerated because of a misplaced decimal. "We bought around 20 cents for a road adjacent to a project. But because of a misplaced decimal, it became 200 acres. We corrected it in the revised affidavit we filed after winning the election," said Sajeevan.

Be that as it may, the survey numbers of the two plots (175.81 acres and 54 cents) did not figure in the 2019 affidavit he filed when the CPM fielded him as an independent candidate from Ponnani Lok Sabha constituency.

"Affidavits will not have the survey numbers of the plots sold. It will have survey numbers of plots newly acquired," he said.

Of the remaining six plots in Trikkalangode, he sold 88.67 cents from a one-acre non-agricultural land he bought in November 2008, and 10 cents from a 4.63-acre commercial plot, by 2019.

When asked if Anwar can sell his plots when he is being probed for possessing surplus land, the MLA's personal assistant said Anwar did not get any notice from the Taluk Land Board prohibiting the sale of land. "Moreover, the case is between the petitioner and the government. We are not a party to it," he said.

Surely, in the writ petition filed by Shaji in March 2021, Anwar is the sixth respondent.

In 2019, Anwar said he owned 12 plots in Trikkalangode, with a total area of 11.22 acres, including 3.45 acres of his wife Sheeja.

He owned all the 12 plots before May 2016 but he declared only five of them.

In 2016, wife Sheeja owned two agricultural plots measuring 1.725 acres each at Trikkalangode. By 2019, the two plots were classified as non-agricultural land. By 2021, one of the plots measuring 1.725 acres was no longer owned by the family.

Perakammana, Anwar's hometown

In 2016, he owned four plots with an area of 48.52 cents at Perakamanna, a village in Malappuram taluk.

Only one of the four plots made it to his 2019 affidavit. But his total landholdings increased to 1.28 acres from five plots, three of the plots were bought before the 2016 election but mentioned for the first time in 2019.

He retained the same information in the 2021 affidavit filed for his re-election from Nilambur assembly constituency.

Koodaranji amusement park

According to the 2016 affidavit, Anwar owned two plots at Koodaranji: a 9.57-acre commercial property; and a 78.3-cent non-agricultural land. He runs the amusement park PeeVeeAar Nature Tourism Village from the 9.57-acre commercial plot.

According to the 2019 affidavit, the Anwar family's landholding at Koodaranji increased to 14.55 acres spread across five plots.

The increase can be partially attributed to his second wife Afsath's 2.65 acres.

He also increased his parkland to 11 acres and divided the property with Afsath in a 60:40 ratio. Now he owns 6.6 acres and Afsath, 4.4 acres of the park. By 2021, Afsath's 4.4 acres came down to 3.83 acres.

By 2021, Afsath gave up two non-agricultural plots measuring 69 cents and 1.96 acres, which she bought in August and December 2015.

RTI activist Shaji said Anwar also sold the 90.3 cents at Koodaranji to one Shefeeq Alungal of Malappuram in October 2021.

To sell the property, Anwar gave a signed undertaking that the plot was not part of the excess land proceedings, Shaji told the high court. "It is clear he sold or transferred the property to his benamis as the Land Board was closing in," he said.

Now, the family owns only 10.43 acres - the amusement park property - at Koodaranji, down from 14.55 acres in 2019. The park has been shut for the past two years and a half over alleged illegal construction of check dams.

His staff said the allegations were unfounded because the park got entangled in red tape.

Crusher in Dakshina Kannada

Anwar owns 2.53 acres of agricultural land spread across two plots at Karaya in Karnataka's Dakshina Kannada district. He also owned a metal crusher unit on a 1.6-acre plot at Karaya. In 2021, he showed the asset as leased/rented property.

The assets outside the state will not come under the ambit of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, said Shaji. But the government is turning a blind eye to Anwar reducing his landholdings even when the Taluk Land Board is supposed to find his assets.

He has also filed a complaint with the Governor against Anwar for concealing or giving false information in the election affidavit. The Government had forwarded the complaint to the chief secretary, who in turn had forwarded it to the Election Commission. 

If found guilty of filing a false affidavit, a candidate may face up to six months in prison under Section 125A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. That said, there is no known case of such a conviction.

Shaji is not disheartened: "I have details of Anwar's properties he is holding in the name of shell companies. I will share the details with the court at the right time," he said.