HC Accuses HYDRAA for Its Recurring Modus Operandi In” Demolish First’ Despite the Subsisting Court Orders

 Hyderabad: A vacation Bench of the Telangana High Court accused HYDRAA of following a recurring modus operandi of "demolish first… and seek justification thereafter", while treating court orders as "an inconvenience to be circumvented rather than a command to be obeyed."

Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka recorded strong disapproval towards HYDRAA's attitude and bold defiance of court orders. “An instrumentality of the state, HYDRAA has to follow the law but instead it launches an aggressive, overnight or dawn-time demolition to destroy property and completely ignores subsisting court orders and thereafter parades the demolition in the media as an accomplishment that is to be celebrated.”

Justice Bheemapaka made the observations while hearing a batch of contempt cases arising out of the demolition and alleged dispossession of a 13.17-acre property in Survey No. 1003 to 1006 situated at Kukatpally. HYDRAA said it had conducted demolitions on the land and dispossession was carried out on May 25 and 26, on the ground that the land belonged to a water body.

However, in 2025, the High Court had noted that the land stood exempted and regularised by the government under GO Ms No. 469 dated 26.03.2008 upon collection of a sum of Rs 9.27 crore way back in 2008. The court had made it clear that the subject land could not be claimed as a water body, shikam or tank land.

At the same time, the court in 2025 had held that in order to balance the equities, the authorities were not precluded from taking appropriate steps to restore the water body said to be situated in Survey No. 7 of Khanamet, if such a water body ever existed, or the authorities may restore the water body in nearby government land. But due process has to be followed.

Despite the specific orders, the HYDRAA conducted demolitions on May 25 and 26. While dealing the contempt cases, Justice Bheemapaka observed that the conduct complained against was "neither novel nor isolated" but indicative of a settled modus operandi on the part of HYDRAA.

The court considered the acts of HYDRAA as being high-handed and prima facie ignoring of the orders of the court which called for the strongest disapprobation. The court directed HYDRAA and the revenue department to forthwith — within 24 hours — restore the subject land, to the state and condition in which it existed immediately prior to May 25, by undoing each and every act of demolition, dispossession, destruction and illegal occupation, including by reinstating the compound fencing along the entire perimeter. The matter has been posted for further hearing on June 4.