Trust owns Gurukul lands, Hyderabad High Court reaffirms

It may be mentioned that many actors and politicians had constructed houses on the land. A division bench of the High Court on September 9, 2012 ruled that entire 627 acres of the Trust property stands restored to the Trust and the state government shall compensate the Trust by way of exchange or otherwise by allotting equal extent of land elsewhere around the city.

The government has submitted that it was not in a position to purchase the lands as it will mean a burden on the exchequer. The individual property owners submitted that they had purchased the lands by paying huge amounts and they are unable to pay regularisation fee as per the existing market rates.

Maintaining that the controversy is a result of the acts and omissions of the government and officials and also in violation to the order of this court in 2001, a division bench comprising Justice Vilas V. Afzulpurkar and Justice B. Siva Sankara Rao dismissed the review petitions.

Voicing concern at the apathy of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments in constituting the Pollution Control Appellate Tribunal for their respective states, the Hyderabad High Court on Friday directed both governments to take immediate steps to set up the authority within three weeks.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar was dealing with a batch of petitions challenging some private factories challenging the closure orders.

One of the petitioner’s submitted that the closure orders issued by the PCB on May 9, 2014 was without considering the objections and submissions that were already sub-judice before the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Appellate Tribunal.

The bench made it clear that the aggrieved parties should first approach the appellate authority on their grievance instead of moving the court directly. The bench directed the state governments to take steps for constitution of appellate tribunals.