HYDERABAD: Bringing closure to a dispute that dragged on for nearly four decades, the Telangana High Court has dismissed a writ appeal filed by the Competent Officer under the Evacuee Interest Separation Act, calling it “completely meritless.”
A bench of justices Moushumi Bhattacharya and Gadi Praveen Kumar said the prolonged inaction in processing the claim for over 40 acres in Jangaon district had caused serious hardship to the rightful claimants.
The land, once categorised as evacuee property, had been lawfully acquired by Saleha Fatima after her brothers migrated to Pakistan post-Partition. Following Fatima’s death, her heirs sought mutation, but objections, encroachment attempts and bureaucratic delays pushed the matter into decades of litigation.
Though the high court in 2000 directed the heirs to approach the competent officer, no action was taken for 25 years. A single judge in June 2024 ordered the officer to dispose of the application within three months.
Instead of complying, the officer filed an appeal, which the bench rejected, directing that the application be decided within four weeks.