Telangana High Court extends stay on Dharani details
Senior counsel Desai Prakash Reddy said the requirement of enrolling in Dharani portal was a vague exercise without legislative backing
Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Thursday extended its stay on the collection and updating of Aadhaar and caste details of the owners of non-agricultural properties for Dharani portal in the state till December 8. This order effectively puts on hold all registrations of non-agricultural properties until December 8.
On Thursday, senior counsel Desai Prakash Reddy put forward his argument, for three hours challenging and differing with the government’s insistence on the non-agricultural property owners submitting their details within a time period. He submitted that the requirement of enrolling in the Dharani portal was a vague and mammoth exercise, without any legislative backing.
“If any mistakes are done in updating the properties details like spelling mistakes in names, house numbers, and others, who should the victim approach and submit his grievances? Even without mentioning this information on a piece of paper, how can the government give an ultimatum to give his details to the enumerator,” Prakash Reddy informed the court.
The counsel further said that “even the government has not defined the position of enumerators and their eligibility. It is supposed that the properties which are not registered on the Dharani portal would become bona vacantia (goods without an apparent owner).”
Advocate-general of Telangana state B.S. Prasad contended that there was no need for a separate law to back the action of the Telangana government to obtain and feed the entire data of the non-agricultural properties into the Dharani portal. “This programme will help citizens in dealing with their properties as it will put an end to mischievous miscreants. The government has come up with this programme with good intentions,” the advocate-general said.
The Chief Justice, however, observed that the ‘intention’ would be considered in only criminal cases, and it was not a matter of the criminal case. Moreover, this issue is related to law and rules.
The court adjourned the batch of PILs and petitions to December 8 for submissions of the advocate-general on behalf of the state government and other counsels for the other petitioners.