Vijayawada: Through an interim order, the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday stayed the construction of houses in the R-5 Zone of capital region Amaravati.
A division bench of Justices D.V.S.S. Somayajulu, Manavendranath Roy and Ravinath Tilhari issued the order on a batch of petitions filed by the Neerukona and Kurasala Farmers’ Welfare Association secretary Sridhar Babu and 11 others.
AP government sources said it would file an SLP in the Supreme Court for relief against the high court’s interim order.
The High Court Bench observed: “Prima facie, this court is of the opinion that the Capital Region Development Authority Act, 2014, as it initially stood talked of affordable housing for land losers and others in the Land Pooling Scheme. Therefore, the question of inducting people from outside the district is a debatable issue.”
The amendments to the AP Metropolitan Region and Urban Development Authorities Act by Act 13 of 2022, by which affordable housing was said to include ‘affordable house plots’, was the subject matter of judicial challenge.
The court observed that Schedules II and III of the Land Pooling Scheme rules and the land allotment regulations were not followed by APCRDA in the allotment of the land to the revenue department.
“In the absence of payment of full-sale price as per the said rules, the transfer of land cannot be completed and further construction cannot be allowed,” the court said.
The Bench observed, “This court finds that enormous amount of the public funds are proposed to be spent for this purpose. This is a matter that is admittedly subject to the final outcome of the writ petitions/SLPs. This court cannot be a mute spectator if public money is spent and that cannot be recouped later.”
The Bench said the pattas issued to the beneficiaries mentioned that they were subject to the final orders from the AP High Court and Supreme Court. “This indicated that the state government is conscious of the fact that the construction in the house site could be taken up only after the final order.”
Though additional advocate general Ponnavolu Sudhakar tried to justify the clause as a “poor work done by the draftsman,” the court said that, prima facie, such a clause referred to further activities after the final orders issued by the High Court and the Supreme Court.
It said the explanation claiming poor draftsmanship did not impress the court.
The bench opined that several issues required a full-fledged hearing. “If the construction is completed, it would become a fait accompli and the loss would be irreparable. The balance of convenience is in favour of maintaining the status quo with respect to the houses till the final judicial orders are passed.”
It said that the rights of the land losers/farmers; the implications of the Amravati Judgement on the farmers/capital city/, its development and the right of the state to alter the plans/schemes were all inextricably linked.
Additional advocate general Ponnavolu Sudhakar argued that as per Section 53 (1)(d) of the APCRDA Act, five per cent of the total area of the Land Pooling Scheme was to be allotted for affordable housing for the poor. “The first master plan did not earmark any site for the economically weaker sections of the society. Later, such a provision was incorporated.”
He submitted that under Section 57 (6) of the APCRDA Act, the affordable housing land could be reserved for affordable housing. The issue of house site pattas for construction of houses was done with the knowledge of the Supreme Court, he said, and added that the HC could not pass any further order restraining the construction.
Petitioners’ counsel Muralidhar Rao argued that the capital city area was formed largely by entering into statutory agreements with the farmers under LPS. The farmers surrendered the land. Their livelihood is based on the government's promise that a developed city would come up in the area and that they would be given plots in a fully developed Amaravati.
He argued that the agreements entered between farmers and CRDA should not be varied or modified unilaterally by the respondents. The lands in the LPS area could be used for the benefit of farmers and others in that area, and outsiders could not be inducted into such lands, he stressed.
Earlier, the state government issued GO-45 dated March 31, 2023, giving permission to CRDA to hand over 1,134.58 acres to district collectors of Guntur and NTR to provide house sites to the economically weaker sections. The AP government was to pay Rs 345.03 crore towards land cost to CRDA.
The total project cost was estimated at Rs 1,081.39 crore, including for construction of 47,017 houses at the rate of Rs 2.30 lakh per unit. The total cost of the housing project was estimated at Rs 1,426.42 crore including the land cost.
Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy recently launched a programme to distribute house sanction certificates to the women beneficiaries in the R-5 Zone in Venkatapalem of Thullur mandal in Guntur district. There, some 50,793 houses were to be constructed for the poor at a cost of Rs 1,370 crore with each house costing Rs 2.70 lakh.
The AP government, meanwhile, said that it would file an SLP in the Supreme Court for relief in the wake of the High Court’s interim order.
A legal officer said, “The state government is in the process of finding a relief in the Supreme Court by filing an SLP.”
The farmers from Amaravati too are planning to file a caveat in the Supreme Court in anticipation of AP state filing an SLP, so that the apex court would give a chance to the farmers to present their version.
