Salkam Cheruvu Encroachment: Telangana High Court Issues Contempt Notices to Top Officials
The earlier Hyderabad district collector had submitted a report confirming the same to the High Court in 2017, in another matter regarding lake encroachment.
Hyderabad: With the petitioner alleging that officials had withheld information with regard to Salkam Cheruvu at Bandlaguda, where alleged illegal constructions are located in the lake bed area by Barrister Fatima Owaisi Educational Campus KG PG run by Salaar-e-Millat Educational Trust founded by AIMIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi, the Telangana High Court on Friday issued notices to senior officials in a contempt case.
The court issued notice to special chief secretary Jayesh Ranjan, HYDRAA commissioner A.V. Ranganath, principal secretaries Yogitha Rana (education), E. Sridhar (irrigation) and Lokesh Kumar (revenue).
The court allowed the petitioner, advocate Vijay Gopal, to implead the Hyderabad district collector in the case and posted the matter to August 11.
Petitioner Vijay Gopal complained that despite the court orders on April 30, the officials did not submit detailed inquiry reports regarding permissions granted to the educational institutions and the action against erring officials. He alleged that the officials suppressed facts and earlier judicial findings pertaining to the lake.
According to the contempt petitioner, the Hyderabad collector, the GHMC and the HYDRAA commissioners had misled the High Court during proceedings on July 9 by producing a memo, USR 8 of 2026, redrawing the full tank level (FTL) of the lake despite being aware that the issue had been adjudicated by the courts and that the entire extent of land in Survey No. 62 had been termed as lake land.
The earlier Hyderabad district collector had submitted a report confirming the same to the High Court in 2017, in another matter regarding lake encroachment.
According to the affidavit submitted by Vijay Gopal, the Special Court for Land Grabbing Cases in 1988, and High Court, through Writ Petition 27803 of 1997, A.S. No. 968 of 2010, and subsequent proceedings, had held that each of these orders had recognised Survey No. 62 as government lake land and rejected private claims over the property.
The petitioner argued that the appellate judgment in A.S. No.968 of 2010, which declared the entire extent of Survey No. 62 as government lake land, and held its sub-division legally untenable, had attained finality. This was submitted by the earlier district collector in PIL No. 220 of 2015, regarding encroachments of Salkam Cheruvu.
‘These facts ought to have been disclosed before the High Court by the said officers, but (they) filed Memo USR 8 of 2026 asserting that portions of Survey No. 62 were outside the FTL despite earlier judicial findings to the contrary,” the petitioner said on Friday. “The officials attempted to create an impression that schools, colleges and other constructions were outside the FTL,” he argued.
