Telangana High Court halts auction, sale of KPHB plots

Says the notification was concerning 24 stray pieces of plots at different phases of KPHB, and the same were not numbered as per the sanctioned layout

Hyderabad: Justice T Vinod Kumar of Telangana High Court on Friday directed the State government to halt the finalisation of the auction and sale of KPHB plots to the successful bidders that were scheduled to be held on Friday at 11 am.

The writ petition was filed M/s PHASE XV, KPHB Sri Venkata Ramana Colony Welfare Association, challenging the action of Telangana State Housing Board, Executive Engineer (Western Division), and others in issuing a notification for the auction of 24 stray plots at KPHB Colony.

---

The petitioner contended that the notification was contrary to G.O. No.6 issued on March 29, 2011.

The approved final layout issued by the GHMC Commissioner on May 28, 2015, provided 100 and 200 feet of roads whereas the proposed stray plot sales are adjacent to 80 feet main road, contrary to the layout, the petitioner pointed out.

Instead of widening the 80-foot road as marked in the master plan, the authorities are proceeding to sell the stray plots which are meant for road widening, the petitioner’s counsel argued.

On the other hand, Advocate General A Sudharshan Reddy State contended that the petitioner was a welfare association and had no locus to challenge the notification.

The AG argued no order could be passed in favour of the petitioner association, arguing that while the notification about the public auction was published on January 9, the petitioner filed the present case at the last moment only to stall the auction.

The Advocate General assured that the State would not deviate from acting as per the law, unlike the functioning of a private developer.

After a detailed hearing and perusal of the evidence on record, Justice Vinod observed that the notification inviting for public auction was concerning 24 stray pieces of plots at different phases of KPHB, and the same were not numbered as per the sanctioned layout. The judge noted that there are indeed open spaces in the layout but without any proper specification on the area of extent.

In the absence of material on record to show the extent of open spaces transferred in favour of the local body as per conditions of the sanctioned layout, the judge refused to accept the claim of the government that stray pieces of plots form part of the approved layout.

Accordingly, the judge directed to stall the ongoing auction and posted the case to January 30 for further hearing.