Kriti Agrawal –
The High Court has slammed successive administrations for failing to safeguard 38 acres of land belonging to the Kalyan Nagar Cooperative Housing Society in Yousufguda, ordering the Telangana government to pay the society market value and imposing expenses of Rs 2 lakh.
The land’s current market worth is estimated to be between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000 crore, and the state has been instructed to pay this sum to the society within two months.
The State must also consider the provisions of the 2013 Land Acquisition Act when calculating market value. This order was issued by the Bench of Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice T. Vinod Kumar, putting an end to a nearly six-decade-long legal battle.
In 1963, the Kalyan Nagar Cooperative Housing Society was founded with 350 members from the lower middle and middle classes. In January 1964, it purchased 38 acres and 2,121 square yards of land in Yousufguda from a few individuals.
The Society’s layout was approved by the director of town planning and the then Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (now GHMC) on March 1, 1978.
Due to the prohibition under the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976, sale deeds could not be performed in favor of members/allottees. In February of 1988, the society’s land was exempted from the Land Ceiling Act. However, the harm had already been done.
The land was encroached upon by 503 people with the support of the then-local MLA P. Janardhan Reddy due to the large delay in the process. On September 19, 1989, the land grabbing prohibition Court declared all 503 occupants of the plots to be land grabbers after hearing the society’s petition. The so-called grabbers did not fight the order, and as a result, it became definitive.
The government of the time never bothered to carry out the Court order. They, on the other hand, requested that the organization purchase it from the grabbers. The state has stated that it will provide alternative land.
The Bench chastised State administrations for avoiding the problem for two decades, despite the fact that they had recognized the necessity to pay the housing society.