Govt appoints Officers’ Committee to probe into temple land encroachments in Devaryamjal

Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar instructed the Committee of Officers to conduct a detailed enquiry and submit a report on the details of the encroachers.

Hyderabad: The State government on Monday appointed a Committee of Officers headed by Panchayat Raj and Rural Development commissioner M Raghunandan Rao to probe into the alleged encroachment of endowment lands belonging to Sri Seetha Rama Swamy temple at Devaryamjal village in Shamirpet mandal of Medchal Malkajgiri district. It has been alleged that former Minister Eatala Rajender and other individuals have occupied a large portion of over 1,521 acres belonging to the temple worth more than Rs 1,000 crore.

Other members of the Committee of Officers are Nalgonda district collector Prashanth Jeevan Patil, Mancherial district collector Bharathi Holikeri and Medchal Malkajgiri district collector Swetha Mohanty.

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In the orders issued, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar instructed the Committee of Officers to conduct a detailed enquiry and submit a report on the details of the encroachers and the land encroached upon, nature of encroachment and the present usage, details of documents possessed by the encroachers, details of permissions if any issued by any government body, violations of existing government regulations, extent of vacant land, extent of land under encroachment by the benamis and the influential persons behind them, and extent of revenue loss to the temple. The committee was directed to submit its report at the earliest and recommend necessary action in this regard.

The State government ordered for the enquiry into the allegations of land encroachments following several complaints from the locals informing about large scale encroachments and illegal transactions of the temple lands in Devaryamjal. The same was reported in a few newspapers on May 2, stating that certain individuals have unlawfully occupied large extents of the temple lands in their own names as well as in benami names, defrauding such high
value properties. It has also been reported that large constructions have been made on these lands without any valid permissions and in utter violation of several laws.

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