Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has directed the TS government to inform the court by Monday on who had waived the lease arrears of GSG Constructions Pvt Ltd and M/s Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd. (Knowledge House).
A division bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt was hearing a plea by Chandra Kishore Jaiswal of the city, seeking resumption of land of the Old Gandhi Medical College at Basheerbagh to the respondent companies for development and operation of Urban Entertainment Centre project by the erstwhile AP government in 2006.
Bajrang Singh Thakur, counsel for the petitioner, said that the respondent companies failed to complete the project as per the agreement and also failed to pay the annual lease amount of Rs 4 crore which has now gone up to Rs 25 crore.
Surprisingly, the government had waived the lease arrears, he said. TS AAG J. Ramachandra Rao said that the two companies had committed gross financial irregularities after obtaining the lease over the 5.5 acres of the prime property.
He told the court that the land was allotted to the respondent companies for development and operation of Urban Entertainment Centre Project.
Questioning how could the government have waived the dues, the bench asked the AAG to answer this by Monday and also place the latest photographs of the construction activity on the site.
