Hyderabad: A petition against the alleged unauthorised constructions on the bed of Ramammakunta lake in Gachibowli took a curious turn on Wednesday. J. Kankaiah, the government pleader for the revenue department, told the division bench, comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar, that the petitioner had served a defamation notice against him accusing him of maligning the image of the petitioner by misrepresenting the facts. Earlier, the Human Rights and Consumer Protection Cell had moved a PIL seeking a CID probe into alleged illegal alienation of government land for construction of a star hotel. The bench had then sought a report from the Ranga Reddy district judge, and the judge in his report suspected the involvement of the land mafia. Subsequently, the bench had ordered a police probe.
Meanwhile, during the summer vacations, the petitioner served a defamation notice to the counsel for the revenue department. When, Mr Kanakaiah told the bench about the defamation notice, Justice Sengupta took serious note of it and summoned the petitioner to appear before the bench at 2.15 pm. When the petitioner appeared before the bench, the CJ warned him of serious consequences for the notice served to the government counsel without ascertaining facts. The CJ told the petitioner that an enquiry by the district judge revealed that the PIL was filed at the behest of the land mafia and the bench had already ordered police probe into it. The bench ordered him to file an apology in writing.
