Let fruit vendors operate from Kothapet: Telangana High Court

The Telangana High Court on Monday directed the state government and the agriculture market committee of Gaddiannaram Fruit Market to allow trading activities on the existing premises at Kothapet till further orders. The court asked the government not to force traders to shift their activities from the existing place to Batasingaram which is a temporary fruit market yard till the facilities were set up at the 178 acres of permanent fruit market at Koheda.

A division bench comprising Justice A. Rajashekar Reddy and Justice T. Vinod Kumar gave these directions while dealing with an appeal filed by the traders and commission agents in the Gaddiannaram market. The contention of appellants is that without providing minimum facilities at Batasingaram, the government and the market committee had been forcing them to shift, by declaring holidays at the existing premises since September 26, 2021. Even after the court orders, the authorities were not allowing them to enter into the Gaddiannaram fruit market premises, the appellants said.

The court allowed to continue business activities till October 18 in the existing premises and in the meantime, the court directed the market committee to place a report by October 18, furnishing information on facilities created at Batasingaram, including shifting of cold storage facilities, office places and trading platforms etc., for the traders at Batasingaram.  

Before issuing these directions, the bench relied on the report submitted by the District Legal Service Authority, Ranga Reddy district, who inspected the facilities at Batasingaram to furnish the ground reality.

The report revealed that at Batasingaram many facilities were not yet created viz., bank was not established, no cold storage facilities, no police station, most of the land was leased out to some other companies etc.

However, the court appreciated some works done at Batasingaram, but it directed all facilities be completed by October 18. The court also asked why the government could not speed up the arrangement of facilities at Koheda market, which was the permanent market premises, instead of spending crores of rupees to create facilities at the temporary market.

Sanjeev Kumar, special counsel for the government said that the government had decided to build a super speciality hospital on Kothapet premises and soon the works would be started. He said almost all the facilities were created at Batasingaram market place but the traders intentionally did not go to Batasingaram. Further, he submitted that the Koheda market would be equipped with all facilities with an expenditure of Rs 500 crore and it would take around one year to complete.

The bench observed that fruit growers were the real victims with these types of disputes and attitudes between commission agents and marketing committee. Whatever income that the fruit growers got after putting in hard work for one year, the commission agents would get several times higher than that during the fruit season of one month or so, observed the court.

The case was adjourned for further hearing to October 18.