Telangana HC to hear petitions against razing secretariat building

Hyderabad: Since Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has decided to start the construction of the new Secretariat building, and shift the Assembly to where Errum Manzil now stands, those who were against this move and had approached the High Court two-and-a-half years ago, have sought that their petition be heard now. Their petition had been kept pending for a response from the state government, which had also promised before the court that it would not demolish the current secretariat building until the case comes up for further hearing.

Satyam Reddy, senior counsel, on Monday made a mention before the bench headed by Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan to hear the PIL filed by Congress MLC T. Jeevan Reddy, seeking a stay on the shifting of the Assembly and secretariat to other buildings after demolishing the existing structures on the premises.

The High Court said it would hear the pending petition on June 28.

The public interest litigation was filed in October 2016 and was heard by the then division bench headed by the then Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan. The then Advocate General K. Ramakrishna Reddy had sought adjournment of 10 days from November 21, 2016 for the Telangana state government to file its counter affidavit and had given an undertaking to the Court that untill this PIL was finally adjudicated, the secretariat building at Saifabad would not be demolished. The PIL had been pending since November 2016.

Mr Jeevan Reddy had informed the then bench that the state government was planning to demolish the secretariat at Saifabad, which was in the heart of the
city. Also, most of these buildings have been newly constructed and demolishing them will be a waste of taxpayers' money, he said, adding that the decision to demolish the secretariat building was taken by the Chief Minister because of his belief in Vastu.