HYDERABAD: A division bench of the High Court on Wednesday told Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states that the lands belonging to temples, if they were to be acquired for public purpose, then a procedure in accordance with the Central Land Acquisition Act, 2013 had to be followed.
The bench held that the alienation of temple lands through mutual agreement between the temple authorities and government institutions and others would not be allowed. Endowment lands cannot be acquired without invoking the acquisition proceedings under the Land Acquisition Act 2013, it noted.
The bench of acting chief justice Ramesh Ranganathan and justice Shameem Akther were dealing with petitions filed by G Prabhakara Charyulu and another of Chittoor district, and others challenging the procurement of temple lands for public purpose with mutual consent of the temple committees.
Earlier, the court had stayed acquisition of temple lands. Irrigation, roads and buildings and other departments’ authorities of both the states filed applications seeking modification of the earlier order.
Senior counsel S Ramachandra Rao, appearing for one of the petitioners, sought directions for payment of compensation and depositing the same in the bank account of the temple concerned prior to land acquisition. He also wanted the temple to be made a party to the case before granting permission for alienation of its land for public purpose.
Taking these submissions into consideration, the bench permitted alienation of about 1.82 acres of temple land for the Polavaram left bank canal.
TTD standing counsel Sivaraju Srinivas told the court that the TTD had no objection to the request made by the National Highway Authority of India for alienating about 87 square metres of land for road widening at Vidyadharapuram in Vijayawada. As per the interim stay, no temple land could acquire without permission of the High Court, he added.
The bench said that acquisition of the said land must be in accordance with Land Acquisition Act 2013. The bench agreed to review the earlier order if the government departments came forward to acquire temple lands. Meanwhile, special counsel for AP government D.Ramesh sought permission for regularisation of the structures developed on the lands belonging to Simhachalam Devasthanam at Visakhapatnam.
The government was prepared to give an alternative land to the Devasthanam to compensate the lands lost by it, he added. The petitioner’s counsel opposed this proposal, saying that the structures developed on the Devasthanam’s land were illegal. While refusing to intervene in the matter at this stage, the bench adjourned the case by one week.