Telangana High Court penalises GHMC chief for denying building permit
It said the city planner or any other authority does not have discretionary power to reject permission for construction without valid reason
Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has faulted the GHMC for maintaining a ‘private’ prohibitory register, in which it was listing land parcels of its choice without legal basis for the purpose of denying permission for construction even to the persons having the right and the title.
A division bench comprising Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice T. Amarnath Goud said that the city planner or any other authority does not have the discretionary power to reject permission for construction without valid basis.
The court was dealing with a petition by A. Shalivahana Reddy, resident of Kukatpally, who challenged the GHMC’s refusal to grant construction permission for his house on 461 square yards in Plots No. 141 and 140 in Survey No. 78 of Hafeezpet village Serilingampally mandal, on the ground that Survey No. 78 it was categoriesed as ‘government sarkar’.
However, the GHMC had granted permission to build high-rise buildings in the same survey number to construction firms and other persons.
On inquiry, the court found that Survey No.78 had 215 acres and 20 guntas of land, and there were nearly 1,000 buildings on the parcel of land, some of them without approved plans.
The petitioner said that on six occasions the government had failed to claim title over the land. In 2004, a notification under Section 22-A was set aside and a direction was given to the registering authorities to entertain registrations.
The government had permitted the Ranga Reddy collector to effect mutation in the land records with respect to the land in Hafeezpet as per the recommendation of the Special Chief Secretary and the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration. In a memo issued 2009, the principal secretary issued orders permitting mutation of names of the parties who had succeeded in CS No.14 of 1958 as per the orders of the High Court.
Even after these documents were submitted, the GHMC refused to grant permission to the petitioner. With that, the court opined that the GHMC commissioner had no authority to the permission under the guise of title dispute. The court also faulted the GHMC for maintaining the private prohibitory register.
The court directed the GHMC to accord construction permission to the petitioner on his property at Hafeezpet. and ordered the GHMC commissioner to pay the petitioner Rs 10,000 as costs for causing inconvenience and hardship to the petitioner.