The Telangana High Court has dismissed a public interest litigation challenging the proposed site for the new Vikarabad district court complex, observing that disputes over government land allotments can delay infrastructure projects without serving a wider public interest.
A bench comprising Acting Chief Justice P Sam Koshy and Justice Suddala Chalapathi Rao rejected the petition filed by a group of advocates from Vikarabad district. The petitioners had questioned the suitability of the proposed site at Mekalagandi and sought the allotment of an alternative location.
The advocates argued that the Mekalagandi site was a low-lying rocky area and had previously been found unsuitable by erstwhile principal district and sessions judges. The petition therefore sought judicial intervention against the proposed location for the district court complex.
During the hearing, the bench questioned whether the site dispute affected the public at large and examined the maintainability of the PIL. The court also referred to the construction of a new high court at Budwel while questioning how such project decisions would affect the public.
The judges observed that disputes over land allotted by the state had increasingly become a source of delay, with different sections of the legal profession supporting or opposing proposed sites. “Of late, this has become a trend, wherever the state is allotting lands, one section of the bar supports, other section opposes. Ultimately, it has to be of larger interest. Such matters are only delaying projects,” the bench said.
The court held that the petitioners had not established grounds for judicial interference and dismissed the PIL. The ruling leaves the proposed Mekalagandi location as the site identified for the new Vikarabad district court complex, based on the information available in the case report.
The decision places the immediate focus on the project’s implementation rather than on a change of location. The court did not direct the state to consider an alternative site, and no further construction timeline was specified in the report.
