VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday questioned the State government as to how it can regularise the temple lands, which are under encroachment. The court asked as to what powers are vested with the government to regularise the endowments lands.
The court found fault with the government’s decision to regularise the encroached lands belonging to Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple in Simhachalam in Panchagramams of Visakhapatnam district. The court further said if the government feels that what it is doing is right, it will give away private lands to landless poor.
Lands belonging to the Simhachalam temple were under occupation in Adavivaram, Venkatapuram, Vepagunta, Purushottapuram and Chimalapalli. These five villages are known as Panchagramams.In 2019, Ramanadham Ramachandra Rao of Vijayawada filed a petition in the court challenging the Act enacted by the State government to regularise the encroached lands on which the encroachers had constructed houses.
The petitioner informed the court that the government had enacted another Act to circumvent the HC orders issued earlier. Advocate General S Sriram said the revenue generated by the regularisation of encroached lands would be deposited into the temple accounts.
The counsel representing the temple management Madhav Reddy said the said lands were under encroachment for 30 years and the situation is not conducive to remove the encroachers.The court said regularisation of temple lands cannot be made by enacting an Act and told the government that there is a danger of temple lands getting alienated to others in the process.