The Telangana High Court has questioned the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) for issuing building regularisation proceedings for unauthorised structures and later approaching HYDRAA and the Revenue Department to demolish them and protect the land on which they stand.
The court asked why GHMC, as a statutory body with powers to demolish structures on government land and protect such land, could not undertake those responsibilities itself. Justice GM Mohiuddin made the observation while hearing a batch of writ petitions challenging demolition orders issued by GHMC and HYDRAA against structures in the Defence Housing Co-operative Society layout in Malkajgiri, Hyderabad.
“Why cannot GHMC, being a statutory body with powers to demolish structures on govt lands and protect such lands, make efforts to protect the lands itself instead of approaching another govt agency?” the judge asked, according to the report.
The petitions include challenges by individual property owners against demolition notices issued for structures in the layout. The petitioner society also alleged that authorities had taken up construction activity on 6,039 square yards of land belonging to it and were using vacant society land to dump garbage.
The society told the court that repeated representations to the authorities seeking an end to the activity had not been addressed, leaving it with no option but to approach the judiciary. It claimed that the layout, spread across 112.03 acres and located near the Malkajgiri Tahsildar’s office and Malkajgiri Police Station, had remained in its possession for more than three decades through lawful proceedings.
The society alleged that authorities had undertaken activities on the premises in violation of its rights and that these actions had caused inconvenience to residents. Its counsel asked the court to direct the authorities not to interfere with the society’s peaceful possession of the land and to restrain them from carrying out further activities there.
The court directed HYDRAA and GHMC to file their counters, giving both agencies a final opportunity to respond to the petitions. The matter was adjourned to November 19 for further hearing. The court also directed an individual petitioner to file a reply to the counters submitted by GHMC and HYDRAA in relation to his 1,657.31-square-yard parcel in the same society.
