Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday gave a huge relief to several prominent persons, including industrialists and those from Tollywood, in a dispute pertaining to land at Khanamet village. Coming as shot in the arm for Daggubati Ramanaidu, K. Raghavendra Rao, P. Govinda Reddy, Ravi Malhotra, Kothari Exports and several others, the court declared that the claim of the state government over the land was unacceptable.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Surepalli Nanda upheld the decision of the single judge, which set aside the decision of the commissioner (appeals) cancelling the 1993 supplementary sethwar in respect of lands measuring 26 acres and 16 guntas in Survey No.s 4, 5,8, 9, 10 and 14/9-12 of Khanamet, Serilingampally mandal, Ranga Reddy district.
Refuting the contention of the government that the owners of the land parcel had resorted to fraudulent means to get the supplementary sethwar in connivance with the lower cadre staff, the court observed that mere suspicion or allegations were not enough to initiate suo-moto revision proceedings. The bench reiterated the Supreme Court orders, which clearly state that the rights of ryots shall not be infringed with such revision.
Further, the court wanted to know why the government had not taken steps to cancel subsequent sale transactions over the said land.
The petitioners said that they had purchased the land through various sale deeds between 23.5.1996 and 4.6.1996 from K. Kousalya and others.
