HYDERABAD: Taking serious note of the lethargic attitude of revenue authorities including the collector in solving the Dharani portal glitches, the Telangana High Court has summoned the Siddipet district collector and the Gajwel tahsildar to appear before the court on August 22 and explain the delay in addressing the problems.
The court asked them to explain why they had not paid attention to the request of a small marginal farmer, who had been trying to resolve his grievances caused due to the non application of mind by the revenue authorities.
Justice Mummaneni Sudheer Kumar was dealing with a petition filed by D. Indrasena Reddy, questioning the collectorate for rejecting his application filed via Mee seva for deletion of his three acres seven guntas land in Survey No. 210 of Mutrajpally, Gajwel mandal, Siddipet district, from the prohibited list.
He said his land was inherited through his ancestors. It was recorded as patta land in Khasra Pahani (1954 revenue records) and subsequent revenue records. In 2019, a preliminary notification was issued under Section 11(1) of Land Acquisition Act 2013 to acquire 2.5 guntas of land belonging to the petitioner for construction of a canal from the Konda Pochammasagar reservoir.
However, the preliminary notification was kept in abeyance till it lapsed and no land was acquired. But, the revenue authorities placed the entire extent of land belonging to the petitioner under the prohibited list and auto-locked the same in Dharani portal.
Aggrieved over the issue, the petitioner made several requests to the authorities to delete his land from the prohibited list. The collector, who was liable to sort out the grievances that came before him through Mee Seva, did not respond properly and rejected it without citing valid reasons. It happened twice. Hence, the petitioner approached the High Court.
Justice Sudheer Kumar expressed displeasure over officials harassing citizens and making them move around offices and courts for mistakes done by the revenue staff. The court observed that it came across more cases of such grievances and stated that it was happening due to the non-application of mind by the revenue staff.
