Hyderabad: Decks have been cleared for the demolition of the popular ‘Janwada Farmhouse’, which former minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi working president K.T. Rama Rao claimed to have taken on lease, with the Telangana High Court refusing to pass any order to not demolish the alleged illegal structure.
The court categorically said that state agencies should follow due process of law while dealing with the structure, if it was found to be illegal. Like many structures which were razed to ground in the recent past the Janwada Farmhouse, leased out to Rama Rao by his childhood friend one B. Pradeep Reddy, was built after taking permission from a local village sarpanch who had no such sanctioning authority.
The High Court was dealing with a petition filed by Pradeep Reddy seeking a direction “to stop different state agencies including HYDRAA from interfering with the peaceful possession and enjoyment of the farmhouse.”
When the petitioner apprehended that his farmhouse may also be demolished by HYDRAA, which had launched a special drive to clear the Full Tank Level areas and buffer zones of lakes of encroachments and wanted the court to pass an order against demolitions, Justice K. Lakshman directed the HYDRAA to strictly follow the procedure laid down in the GO Ms 99 brought out by the state government setting up specialised agency HYDRAA.
The government also informed the court that it was an illegal structure. “The High Court case is now centred around whether or not the structure falls in prohibitory limits of the water body. But, even otherwise, it is an illegal structure because the panchayat secretary, not the sarpanch, is the sanctioning authority. Hence, the structure is liable for demolition by the local municipal authority, if not HYDRAA,” pointed out a senior state official.
The state, according to the official, will have two options — expand the area of operation of HYDRAA, establish that the farmhouse falls in the prohibitory limits of the water body and get it demolished by HYDRAA or treat it as an illegal structure and make the local authorities carry out the demolition. Significantly, the lake protection activists alleged that the farmhouse owner had deliberately described the twin reservoirs of Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar as lakes to gain a leverage in prohibitory limits which would otherwise be stringent in terms of reservoirs.
Serious questions were also raised about the propriety of the BRS working president in taking an illegal structure on lease. The environmental activists and rival political parties were of the view that being a municipal minister it was his duty to demolish illegal structures instead of taking it on lease and living in it.
Wednesday’s development also came as a shot-in-the-arm for the Congress government, in particular, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, who is the architect of HYDRAA.
The petitioner raised serious questions over the legality of HYDRAA terming it as an illegal agency which was set up in violation of the GHMC Act, an argument similar to the one echoed by the All-India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) recently when a structure built by its MLA Mohammed Mubeen was demolished.
The High Court also sought a clarification from the government on the legality of HYDRAA and after the government submitted the GO to the court, Justice Lakshman directed HYDRAA to follow the procedure laid down in the GO, but he did not pass any order that would have put the very existence of HYDRAA in doubt.
