Land for journalists' society: HC seeks early vacation of land by encroacher
Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Friday asked counsel for D. Narendra Babu, who encroached upon a part of the government land in Survey No. 332 in Nizampet, to make clear how much time he would take to vacate the plot and remove all the structures and machinery he had illegally erected there.
The land was part of 32 acres allotted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Mutually Aided Journalists’ Cooperative Housing Society.
Considering a petition filed by Narendra Babu challenging the eviction notice issued by revenue authorities, Justice P. Naveen Rao noted that the petitioner was an encroacher of government land and he had admitted this himself. The government followed due procedure by serving an eviction notice, the court said.
“You get word from your client as to how much time he would require to vacate the land,” Justice Rao asked petitioner’s counsel.
The court posted the matter to Tuesday and directed revenue authorities to not remove structures as adequate time should be given to the encroacher to remove them.
Bachupally tahsildar N.R. Saritha issued the eviction notice, giving in detail the illegal steps taken by Narendra Babu and also the misrepresentation of facts thereof.
Representing the journalists’ housing society, advocate R.N. Hemendranath Reddy brought to the court’s notice the repeated attempts of the accused to hold on to the land by filing a series of cases. “In all these cases, the encroacher was misleading the court. While the accused owns one acre and 15 guntas in adjoining Survey No. 333, he also encroached on land in Survey No. 332,” Hemendranath Reddy said.
On an earlier occasion, when revenue authorities tried to demolish illegal structures, the accused misled the court that the authorities demolished structures in his private land. He also misinterpreted facts by saying the AP State Finance Corporation had sold land in both survey numbers but the records showed that the corporation had sold an acre and 15 guntas in Survey No. 333.
Reddy also brought to the court’s notice that the Supreme Court had given an order to the government to hand over possession of the land to the society and not allow any more encroachment there. “After all, an open government land is an orphan,” he pointed out.
