Paigah case: Babus made party

Hyderabad: The AP High Court has suo motu impleaded teh Hyderabad district collector, the principal secretary of revenue department and the jagir administrator of the state as respondents to the app lications pending before it to pass a final decree on Paigah properties in Soma-jiguda village of the city.

While allowing an application by Syed Mujtaba Ali seeking to implead him as respondent to the applications for passing of final decree on Paigah properties in city, Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao ordered the registry to implead the officials as parties to the litigation in the larger public interest.

The judge took the decision to implead the officials  after noticing the observation in a judgement by a division bench of the Hingh Court with regard to Paigah properties.

The bench asked whether the decree holders would be entitled to all public roads, lanes, parks, bridges, ditches, rivers, streams, tanks, ponds, canals, lakes etc., which would otherwise vest with the government.

This observation was made by the division bench after it found out that the decree holders were claiming village after village in Ranga Reddy District and locality after locality in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

Thus, there could be thousands of private properties in the villages which are included by the decree holders in the schedule to the preliminary decree. The bench suspected a fraud in the claiming of properties by the decree holders.

Following the observations, the judge felt that the claim in Survey no.1 to 40 of Somajiguda in respect of which the application for final decree was filed, might conceivably include government properties, public roads, many private buildings, lanes, parks, bridges, ditches, etc. Justice Rao also noticed that in the preliminary decree only “Soma-jiguda” was mentioned at Item No. 236 as a Maktha in Schedule ‘A’ and there was no mention of Survey numbers or boundaries in it.