Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has suo moto initiated contempt proceedings against revenue authorities for not deleting Sy No. 78 of Hafeezpet from the prohibitory register to facilitate the registration of properties.
In a related development, the court levied a fine of Rs 10,000 on the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation for denying permission to two individuals to build their house in 300 square yards (sq. yds) and 461 sq. yds of land respectively in Sy No. 78.
The GHMC took the plea that the land belonged to the government while denying permission to the individuals, after allowing high-rise residential complexes by Mahindra Ashvita, Prajay and Aditya in 10-20 acres in the same survey number.
While the High Court had set aside the notification issued under Section 22A of the Registration Act, 1908 in 2014 itself, it again directed the authorities to delete the land parcels in Sy No. 78 of Hafeezpet from the prohibitory list in October 2019.
During a recent hearing of a case, a division bench comprising Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice T. Amarnath Goud took serious note of the government ignoring both the orders and directed the registry to issue a show-cause notice to the tahsildar-cum-joint sub-registrar, Serilingampally, and posted the matter for further hearing, on Thursday last week.
The state government took the suo moto contempt order to the notice of the Supreme Court on Friday by submitting it as additional material in an ongoing case in the apex court. Ironically, it did not pray for any relief but just made an attempt to draw the apex court’s attention to the contempt proceedings.
The bias of the government towards the rich and discrimination against commoners also came to the fore in the High Court case. The division bench, in a recent order, recorded that the “Special Government Pleader also did not deny that the respondents (municipal authorities) had granted construction permission for high rise buildings to M/s Prajay Engineers Syndicate Limited for an extent of 20 acres, to M/s Mahindra Ashvita for an extent of 10 acres, to M/s Aditya Constructions Company Limited for an extent of 10 acres and to M/s G.K. Constructions also in (Sy No 78 of) Hafeezpet village.”
The High Court reiterated that the government's stand on Hafeezpet lands covered in CS 14 of 1958 was clearly “vexatious and impermissible.” If on six occasions the claim of the state government on the land in Hafeezpet village has been rejected right up to the Supreme Court, it was not open to the government to still plead that it has a right on the subject land and deny building permissions, the High Court pointed out.
