❖ 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.