Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has upheld the then APIIC decision in 2010 in allotting a 523-sq. m. (square metre) residential plot in Jeedimetla industrial housing complex- II to Rashmi Abhichandani, a law officer of the corpration.
However, the High Court directed her to pay the balance amount of the government market value (Rs 12,000 per square metre) of the said year. Now she has to pay `6000 per square metre as she was allotted the plot by APIIC at a throwaway price of Rs 6,000 per sq. m.
The division bench headed by Chief Justice Alok Aradhe recently decided the issue in a PIL filed by High Court advocate Pasham Krishna Reddy in 2011, challenging the plot allotment to Abhichandani by the APIIC at such a low price. He sought the court to set aside the said allotment and direct the organisation to conduct an open auction of the plot.
The court said that the action of APIIC in not allotting the plot by inviting a tender or auction, cannot be found fault with and there is no deviation amounting to illegality as contended. The bench observed that the allotment made is neither discriminatory nor arbitrary. The court also viewed that the authority may deviate from the settled mode of allotment of land in a peculiar fact situation of a case for justifiable reasons, in the instant case, it is prone to encroachment.
