Telangana High Court wrath at GHMC’s lies

Hyderabad: GHMC commissioner Lokesh Kumar faced the wrath of the Telangana High Court yet again on Tuesday, when it was found that the GHMC’s Rajendranagar deputy commissioner had provided false information about the number of polluting industries at the Shastripuram Housing Board Colony area.

Stating that the GHMC officials were playing hide and seek with the court, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy asked several questions and voiced dissatisfaction with the manner in which the authorities had filed affidavits before the court on the matter.

The bench summoned GHMC commissioner Lokesh Kumar and Rajendranagar deputy commissioner D. Pradeep Kumar to appear in court on March 11 to answer queries.

The bench was dealing with a public interest litigation and several petitions which were filed in 2012 and 2013 on the inaction of the GHMC in relocating the polluting industries to another area from the jurisdiction of the erstwhile Hyderabad Urban Development Authority area. These cases came before the bench after seven years in January.

In that hearing, the deputy commissioner told the court that there were only three industries and the corporaton was trying to relocate them from the Shastripuram area. Ms Pushpinder Kaur, the advocate who has been appointed to assist the court in the case, submitted that the GHMC staff was giving false information and that there were more than 200 polluting industries.

With that, the court directed the member secretary of the Telangana State Legal Services Authority to inspect the locality and submit a report. The report by the member secretary stated that there were more than 375 industries in the locality, including at Tatanagar, which is a part of Shastripuram.

The bench became infuriated on hearing this on Tuesday and said the GHMC was “playing hide and seek with the court”. It directed the GHMC commissioner to appear before the court and explain the discrepancies in the affidavit filed by deputy commissioner D. Pradeep Kumar and the one submitted by the member-secretary of the Legal Services Authority.

Just last week, the High Court had pulled up the GHMC with regard to the large number of petitions being filed regarding illegal constructions in Hyderabad. The High Court had on February 28 that this could be happening only because GHMC personnel from the senior ranks to the junior levels have developed a thick skin and an obstinate attitude.

The court had observed that if the GHMC commissioner, was not implementing the law and had failed to deal with the menace of illegal constructions, why doesn’t the government sack him.