Hyderabad: The proposed prestigious twin-towers command and control centre for police of the TS government is caught in a legal wrangle. After a judge granted an order staying the construction of the twin towers, the government has appealed before the division Bench against the order.
The TS government has proposed to build twin towers of 16 floors and 24 floors with helipads atop them along with parking space for over 600 four-wheelers at Road No 12 in Banjara Hills.
It has allocated eight acres for the buildings and also for the Hyderabad police commissionerate. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has also approved the design for the state-of-the-art police command and control centre.
Meanwhile, one Mir Afsar Ali and 16 others moved the High Court claiming that they owned five out of the eight acres allocated for the command centre and challenged the action of the principal revenue secretary of rejecting their application dated April 30, 2007 for regularisation of the five acres.
They urged the court to declare the construction on their land as arbitrary, illegal and also in violation of the orders passed by the High Court in 2001 and in 2009, and to stop the construction.
After perusing the rejection order passed by the principal secretary for regularisation of land in favour of the petitioners, Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao granted a stay by pointing out: “Since the impugned order is bereft of reasons and is very cryptic, there shall be interim direction as prayed for, for a period of four weeks.” While issuing notices to the respondents, the judge posted the case for hearing after two weeks.
Challenging the single judge’s order, the TS government has moved an appeal contending that the petitioners had no valid title over the land and they had applied for regularisation claiming the land was in their possession.
The government in its appeal informed the court that the principal secretary was an administrative authority and had no quasi-judicial powers to decide the title and there was no necessity to record the reasons in rejecting the regularisation application as he was an administrative officer.
Citing the Supreme Court’s orders, the government submitted that applying for regularisation was nothing but admitting that the title of the land rested with the government.
