The Madras High Court dismissed petitions filed against the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) offered by Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited (BBTCL) to the Manjolai tea estate workers in Tirunelveli district.
It has also directed the Tamil Nadu government to extend all the relief measures which it had agreed to offer to the workers who had suffered job loss.
The BBTCL had decided to wind up its operations at Manjolai, Kakkaachi, Nalumukku, Oothu, and Kuthiraivetti (collectively known as Manjolai estates) much before the end of the 99-year lease granted to it by the erstwhile Singampatti Zamindar in 1928.
The Zamindar had leased out 3,388.78 hectares to the private company.
But the government had notified the entire Singampatti estate as a forest on March 22, 1937 under Sections 26 and 32 of the then Madras Forest Act of 1882.
Subsequently, on August 2, 1962, areas forming part of the estate were notified as a part of the Mundanthurai tiger sanctuary under the then Wild Birds and Animals (Protection) Act, 1912.
It turned out to be the first notified tiger sanctuary in the country.
On December 28, 2007, the government declared the areas which formed part of the estate as a core critical tiger habitat by invoking the Wild Life (Protection) Act of 1972.