Hyderabad: Maintaining that the Building Regularisation Scheme appeared to promote illegal buildings, the Hyderabad High Court on Monday permitted the Forum for Good Governance to amend its plea questioning the ordinance that amended the GHMC Act to implement the scheme
A bench comprising Acting CJ Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice P. Naveen Rao was dealing with a petition by the Forum, represented by Mr M. Padmanabha Reddy, challenging a GO issued on October 31, 2015, that amended Section 455 AA of the GHMC Act, 1955 to regularise illegal buildings.
Advocate-General K. Ramakrishna Reddy said an ordinance was issued on February 4, 2016, to amend the Act, in place of the GO.
Mr K. Ramakrishna Reddy said the main contention of the petitioner that the government had no power to amend an Act through a GO does not survive with the issue of an ordinance and urged the court to dismiss the petition.
Petitioner’s counsel Sivaraju Srinivas, said there were other aspects in the petition including the powers of HMWWSB and Discom regarding unauthorised buildings.
He said the Water Board and Discom have to collect three times more tariff from unauthorised structures. He said the government had in 2007 incorporated Section 455 AA to regulate buildings which are constructed till the date of commencement of amendment as a one-time measure.
Once it was implemented, the government had no power extend the benefit to buildings constructed after that, he said. Justice Bhosale said, “The court has power to quash the ordinance.”
Citing a Bombay High Court verdict, the bench asked the petitioner to file the copy of the judgement along with his petition questioning the ordinance and posted the hearing to Wednesday.
