HC dismisses plea against govt selling prime lands

The PIL bench of the High Court at Hyderabad comprising Acting Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosale and Justice S Ravi Kumar on Tuesday dismissed a petition questioning the action of the Telangana State government in seeking to sell prime urban properties in Hyderabad.

The bench was dealing with a public interest writ petition filed by OM Debara. The petitioner complained that the Telangana State government had abandoned an earlier order of the erstwhile AP government in 2012 not to sell away lands to generate revenue.

He said the decision of the government was without any verifiable transparent data and decision making process. The bench enquired whether the government had taken any decision to relax or change the 2012 policy.

Advocate General K Ramakrishna informed the court that the conditions of 2012 policy were being relaxed to facilitate the government to sell the government lands through a government order.

The petitioner complained that the said order was not made public and was shown as ‘highly confidential’ in the government website. The bench pointed out that the rules gave discretionary power to the government and no grounds were made out for the court to interfere and dismissed the petition.