Telangana High Court stays part of interim order on Nagaram land case

The Telangana High Court Division Bench comprising Justices Moushumi Bhattacharya and Gadi Praveen Kumar suspended the interim order relating to Survey Nos. 194 and 195 of Nagaram village, granting relief to senior IAS and IPS officers in the disputed land case

By Legal Correspondent

Hyderabad: Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya and Justice Gadi Praveen Kumar, on Friday, suspended the operation of the single Judge’s interim order to the extent it relates to Survey Nos. 194 and 195 of Nagaram Village of Maheshwaram mandal in Ranga Reddy District. The Division Bench was hearing a batch of writ appeals filed by senior IAS and IPS officers, including Ravi Gupta, Tarun Joshi, Dr. Gyanmudra, wife of former Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, among others.

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The officers challenged the interim directions issued by Justice CV Bhaskar Reddy on April 24, restraining any change, mutation, or alienation of lands in Sy.Nos.181, 194 and 195 and directed their inclusion in the list of prohibitory properties. Later due to change of roster the matter was heard by Justice Lakshman, who had refused to vacate the interim directions, observing that serious allegations had been made against senior public officials and that the matter involved questions of public interest. He had also directed the Rangareddy district collector to submit a detailed report on the land transactions.

During Friday’s hearing, Senior Counsel S Niranjan Reddy, appearing for the appellants, submitted that even the District Collector’s counter affidavit in the writ petition clearly stated that Sy.Nos.194 and 195 are private patta lands. He further pointed out that the writ petitioner himself had initially claimed in his affidavit that these lands were Bhoodan lands, but later filed a correction petition asserting that they were Gairan lands.

The senior counsel submitted that, despite these factual inconsistencies, the case had been widely reported in the media “in a bad light,” portraying as though several senior IAS and IPS officers had abused their official positions without any proper verification of records. The Single Judge had earlier passed interim directions based on allegations of large-scale manipulation of land records, misuse of Section 13-B proceedings under the ROR Act, and fraudulent deletion of lands from the prohibitory list under Section 22-A of the Registration Act, 1908.

The petitioner had claimed that parts of the land originally belonged to the Telangana Bhoodan Yagna Board and were illegally transferred through fabricated documents. In its observations, the Division Bench noted that even the Enforcement Directorate, which had filed its own counter in the writ proceedings, had not raised any objection with regard to the ownership or nature of Sy.Nos.194 and 195, and the District Collector too had recorded that these lands are not Bhoodan lands. The Bench accordingly suspended the operation of the interim order insofar as it pertained to Sy.Nos.194 and 195, and disposed of the Writ Appeals.