Hyderabad: The Telangana government has informed the Hyderabad High Court that the Congress led N. Kiran Kumar Reddy government had caused a loss of Rs 135 crore to the state exchequer by restoring a cancelled lease with regard to land belonging to the old Gandhi Hospital at Basheerbagh. The government alleged that Vatti Vasanth Kumar, in his capacity as tourism minister at that time, had caused loss to the exchequer by restoring the lease.
The erstwhile AP government had leased 5.6 acre to a private company to develop the Urban Entertainment Centre. Telangana youth advancement, tourism and culture department secretary B. Venkatesham filed a counter affidavit before the court in a PIL filed by one Chandra Kishore Jaiswal seeking a CBI probe into the restoration of the lease despite the private company failing to complete the project.
He informed that the then AP government in 2006 had selected three companies – through a tender process – belonging to one G.S. Gupta, a businessman with 73 per cent stake in the project, and Pantalcoon Retail India Ltd with 27 per cent, for developing the project. The lease was cancelled in March 2012 by the government as the project had not made any progress in six years.
He said that later DLF Universal Ltd of Gurgaon had come forward stating that the developers had roped it in as partner and that it had invested more than Rs 100 crore in the project. When the earlier developer moved a plea before the High Court challenging the termination, the court had asked the developer to pay at least Rs 10 crore towards lease rentals though the total outstanding amount at that time was more than Rs 25 crore.
The court had made it clear that the government should not give back possession of the land to the developer and that it should not restore the cancelled contract, Mr Venkatesham said in his counter-affidavit. Despite of the court order, the case was referred to an empowered committee of ministers by the Kiran Kumar Reddy government.
Mr Venkatesham informed the court that the empowered ministers’ committee had left the matter to Mr Vatti Vasanth Kumar, the then tourism minister. The Telangana state government said that just before the bifurcation of the undivided state in February 2014, the file pertaining to restoration of the lease was fast tracked.
Five days before his resignation on February 19, 2014, Mr Vasanth Kumar had written on the file that the developer had met him and agreed to withdraw the writ petition and directed the authorities to restore the contract and redeliver the possession of the land to the developer. Authorities later completed the process of restoration of lease and entered into a fresh lease agreement with the same defaulter for a period of 33 years, that too at the old rates fixed in 2006, Mr Venkatesham said.
Delimitation of WMC questioned
The Telangana government’s move in approving the delimitation of Warangal Municipal Corporation (WMC) area into 58 wards has been questioned before the Hyderabad High Court.
Mr S. Rajesh and nine others of Warangal city have moved a petition pointing out that the government’s decision to approve the delimitation of the corporation into 58 wards is in violation of the provisions of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, 1955 and Andhra Pradesh Municipal Corporations (Delimitation of Wards) Rules, 1996.
The petitioners alleged that the commissioner of WMC had rejected their objections pursuant to the preliminary notification issued on July 4, 2015.
They informed the court that the government had approved the ward division proposals without considering the objections and suggestions forwarded to the corporation and urged the court to direct the authorities to reconsider the objections filed by them on the issue.
