Telangana HC Grants Relief to Kavuri Hills Homeowners

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court gave temporary relief to the house owners in the Kavuri Hills, Block B, Guttala Begumpet, with regard to demolition of their structures by the HYDRAA or corporation authorities.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J. Sreenivas Rao directed the Serilingampally tahsildar to hear the contentions of the petitioners and go through the documents furnished by them such as sale deeds, permission obtained by the sarpanch and panchayat secretary etc., and then take action in accordance with the law.

The bench was adjudicating a batch of seven writ petitions filed by local residents, all of them having constructed residential houses (stilt plus four floors on 500 square yards and stilt plus five floors on 500 square yards) on their plots situated at Kavuri Hills, Block B. The petitioners were issued notices on August 3 by the deputy collector and tahsildar of Serilingampally mandal under Section 23 of the AP Water, Land, Trees Act, 2002 for constructing within the full tank level (FTL) of Durgam Cheruvu. The notices stated that illegal structures constructed within the FTL would be demolished.

The writ petitions were tagged with the suo motu PIL on Durgam Cheruvu, because the buildings fell within the FTL of the lake and the Chief Justice bench had passed a series of directions to the state government, clearly directing it to remove illegal structures constructed within the FTL of Durgam Cheruvu.

The petitioners submitted that they had purchased plots around 1998 and the venture consisted of 280 plots in more than 50 acres of land and they had constructed houses several years ago.

After hearing the petitioners, the Chief Justice bench directed the tahsildar to go through the documents furnished by the petitioners and take action in accordance with the law.