Hyderabad High Court seeks info on Miyapur land scam

Hyderabad: Asking the Telangana state government to spell out its stand on a PIL seeking CBI probe into the Miyapur land scam, the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday directed it to place before it all relevant records pertaining to the Miyapur land transactions and action taken by it by next week.

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice T. Rajani was dealing with a PIL by BJP spokesperson and advocate M. Raghunandan Rao seeking to direct the TS government to transfer the ongoing probe into the Miyapur land scam to the CBI.

Mr Rao said brought to the notice of the bench that the Supreme Court had restrained registration of all transactions pertaining to land in Survey Nos. 20, 28, 100 and 101 of Miyapur in October 2014. 

Despite of the ban on registration, several individuals and government officials whisked away 682 acres with help of forged documents, the PIL said.

Mr Rao submitted that banks also gave huge loans based on these sale deeds. He said that to unearth the influential people involved in the clandestine land deals, the CBI must take over the investigation.

He alleged that the state police has failed in arresting P. Sanjiv Prasad, the alleged kingpin behind the scam and said that if there was no unbiased probe into the case, the state exchequer stood to lose about Rs 1,000 crore. 

Special counsel for the government submitted that the officers concerned have been suspended and cases have been registered.

The bench directed the government to place the details pertaining to the sale of the land after the Supreme Court orders, besides the action taken against the officers who sold the land, and the purchasers and also the quantum of money that changed hand. The bench adjourned the case to August 1.