HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday asked civil servants and authorities to be fair and square in resolving public issues instead of filing affidavits with exaggeration to convince the court.
A division bench comprising Justice A. Rajashekar Reddy and Justice T. Vinod Kumar was dealing with a PIL, filed a year ago, over illegal constructions in the FTL lands of several lakes in and around the Nirmal town.
The court directed Nirmal district collector to take action to remove the constructions and to set up fences around all lakes in Nirmal. The court also sought a status report on the issue. The collector and the government counsel on Wednesday submitted that all measures were being taken to protect the lakes and remove the habitations in the FTL lands.
However, Chinnolla Naresh Reddy, the counsel for the petitioner drew the notice of the court over the laxities in the affidavit filed by the collector, in which he said all things were going well and the court directions had been complied.
Reacting to that, the bench observed that the authorities should respond genuinely to the public issues and should be available wherever their presence was required, instead of appearing before courts. “If you take steps and prepare action plans to solve public issues, then you need not appear before the court,” the court observed.
