Manjolai tea estates case: Madras High Court begins final hearing

The 99-year-long lease granted to Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited (BBTCL) with respect to 3,388.78 hectares by Singampatti Zamindar is all set to come to an end in 2028.

As most of the lands in its occupation had been declared as a reserve forest and a tiger habitat between 2007 and 2018, the company has already begun the process of winding up its operations once and for all at Manjolai tea estates. It has accepted the voluntary retirement applications submitted by 536 workers and offered them an ex-gratia ranging from ₹2.12 lakh to ₹3.68 lakh each depending upon their age.

Following the turmoil, a batch of nine writ petitions have been filed in the High Court with five of them, including the one filed by Puthiya Tamilagam president K. Krishnasamy, batting in favour of continuing the tea plantations through a cooperative society to be formed by the existing labourers and the rest of the four petitions insisting upon rejuvenating the forests by completely stopping tea and other commercial plantation activities in the reserve forest area in order to protect the flora and fauna.

A special Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy began hearing final arguments on the batch of cases on October 23. Leading the arguments on behalf of those in favour of the tea plantation activity, Mr. Krishnasamy, appearing as a party-in-person, said that the Manjolai village, falling under the jurisdiction of Manimuthar Special Grade Town Panchayat, consisted of five hamlets named Manjolai, Kakkaachi, Nalumukku, Oothu and Kuthiraivetti and the tea estates were spread all over.

Claiming that the tea estate workers would squarely fall under the definition of ‘traditional forest dwellers’ as defined under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of 2006, he said, their population was more than 10,000 before the year 2000 but it had dwindled over the years to just 2,500 at present due to alleged human rights violations and poverty. He accused BBTC of having treated the tea plantation labourers as slaves and recalled a major labour unrest that took place in 1998-99.

He said the government had declared 22,972.90 hectares, including the tea estate lands, as a reserve forest in 2018 without taking into consideration the effect it would have on the livelihood of the plantation labourers. He claimed that the tea estate workers were not given a proper opportunity of hearing by the Forest Settlement Officer before declaring the lands as reserve forests and therefore, they were entitled to the benefits of the 2006 Act that had been enacted to set right the historical injustice done to forest dwellers.

Alleging that BBTCL had obtained voluntary retirement applications through coercion and by threatening the labourers that they would lose the opportunity of getting ex-gratia if they do not sign the papers, Mr. Krishnasamy said, the people residing in the hills for generations together could not be dislodged overnight. If this gets allowed, then it would be replicated in the tea estates at Valparai, Coonoor, Gudalur, Highwavy, Yercaud and other places thereby dislodging 15 lakh people from their habitat, he said.

He sought a direction to the Deputy Commissioner of Labour in Tirunelveli district to cancel the voluntary retirement applications submitted by the estate workers to BBTCL and a further direction to the State government to assign four hectares of land each to the tea plantation workers. He said that the labourers had shed their blood and sweat to raise the tea plantations over several decades on the hilly slopes and that it would be a grave injustice and an economical blunder to destroy them overnight.

While sailing with the arguments advanced by Mr. Krishnasamy, advocate G. Prabhu Rajadurai, representing yet another writ petitioner, said, the same Division Bench of Justices Kumar and Chakravarthy had in August 2023 ordered compensation of ₹15 lakh each to 495 families which had to be relocated from Thengumarhada village, situated within the eastern boundary of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, in order to pave way for free movement of tigers and other animals in the forest area.

Therefore, even if the Bench was not inclined to permit the tea plantations to continue anymore in Manjolai, it should at least order payment of a reasonable amount of compensation to the families to be uprooted, he prayed.

On the other hand, lawyers, representing the cause of the environment, insisted that no commercial plantations should be permitted in the reserve forest area and that the State government must be directed to rejuvenate the forests after uprooting the tea plantations.

Responding to a court’s query, the Tamil Nadu Tea Plantation Corporation (Tantea) said that it would not be legally feasible for it to take over the plantations from BBTCL since the lands had already been classified as reserve forests and as a core tiger habitat under the Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve area.

Even otherwise, highlighting its grim financial position, Tantea said, it had been suffering losses for the last three decades due to the volatile tea market and increasing labour costs.

“The accumulated loss of Tantea at the end of the financial year 2022-23 is ₹293.31 crore. It is facing a severe financial crisis and is unable to meet day-to-day expenses. It has obtained loans to the tune of ₹116 crore from the State government, ₹58.40 crore from Tamil Nadu Forest Plantation Corporation Limited and ₹15 crore from UCO bank to pay wages and retirement benefits. In view of continuous loss in the last three decades, Tantea also does not have the financial capacity to take over the said Manjolai estates,” its report read.

On its part, the forest department filed a status report asserting that the lands were declared as reserve forests after following due process of law laid down under the Tamil Nadu Forest Act, 1882. It said, BBTCL would be legally bound to take all rehabilitation measures for its workers and settle their dues as per the relevant laws and that a majority of the grievances presented by the present writ petitioners before the court were not related to the forest department.

Stating that tea plantation workers could not be considered as ‘traditional forest dwellers’ since they had migrated to the hills from other places, the department asserted that forest lands could not be assigned to any individual. It also feared that employees of Arasu Rubber Corporation, Tantea and so on might also raise similar requests if any concession was shown towards the Manjolai workers. “It will create permanent settlements and break the continuity of forest and wildlife corridor,” the department pointed out.

Sons of tea estate workers

After taking the reports on file and hearing almost all the counsel representing the nine writ petitioners before the court, the Division Bench led by Justice Kumar adjourned the matter to November 11 for the arguments of Advocate General P.S. Raman for the State government and senior counsel Srinath Sridevan for BBTCL.

Advocate siblings I. Robert Chandrakumar and I. Pinaygash, practising in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, are the sons of Manjolai tea estate workers. Their maternal great grandmother Susai Ammal and maternal great grandfather Anthonimuthu had migrated from Villiseri village in Tirunelveli district to Manjolai.

The couple gave birth to the brothers’ maternal grandmother Lourdhu Ammal in Manjolai in 1933. She too grew up to be an estate worker and gave birth to the siblings’ mother Irudhaya Mary in 1955. Ms. Mary too became a tea estate worker. In 1977, she married the lawyers’ father Immanuel who had migrated to Manjolai as a child in 1953 for assisting his father in the estate, became a mahout for a brief period due to his natural liking for elephants around the Upper Kodayar and then joined the tea estate.

Unlike her and the generations before her, Ms. Mary did not want her children too to become labourers at the tea estate. Therefore, she and her husband sent both their sons and as well as two daughters to government aided boarding schools in the plains and got them educated well. However, then, little did the couple knew that their sons would someday grow up to fight a legal battle before the High Court for protecting the livelihood of the Manjolai estate workers.