High Court notice to Telangana State on validity of regularisation of land

The Telangana High Court issued notices to the Chief Secretary, principal secretary, panchayat raj, and rural development, and the commissioners of GHMC and the HMDA, directing them to respond to a petition questioning the constitutional validity of Government Order (GO) 131.

The GO issued by the municipal administration department provides for regularisation of unapproved layouts spread across the state. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy was dealing with the PIL filed by Forum for Good Governance (NGO) represented by its general secretary, M. Padmanabha Reddy.

Senior counsel S. Satyam Reddy, appearing for the petitioner, informed the court that GO 131 containing the Telangana Regularisation of Unapproved and Illegal Layout Rules is in strict violation of Section 58 of the Telangana Urban Areas Development Act, 1975, the GHMC Act, the HMDA Act, the Municipalities Act, the Panchayat Raj Act and the Telangana Urban Areas Development Act.

Counsel said that the state government was forcing people to cough up regularisation amounts. Because of this, people were facing problems in making payments towards the land regularisation scheme. Further, senior counsel insisted that the court pass an interim direction stating that the decision of the government would be subject to the outcome of the result in the PIL.

Chief Justice Chauhan observed, “if the PIL petition is allowed and the GO is set aside, the GO will go... so let us hear from the state as to what is its stand.” He said that because the bench was convinced of the PIL the court needed to know the stand of the government on this issue.

Advocate General B.S. Prasad informed the bench that since this PIL requires a final hearing, he sought two weeks to file counter-affidavits. The hearing was adjourned to October 8.