HYDERABAD: Telangana government’s ambitious plans of building an ultra modern Secretariat building hit a road-block on Wednesday when the Telangana High Court had ordered that the stay granted earlier on demolition of existing Secretariat buildings will now continue until a final decision is taken by the State Cabinet on architectural designs, plans and cost estimate of the new Secretariat complex. The Court directed the State government not to disturb the existing structures until further orders of the Court. “Why is the State government in a hurry to demolish the existing Secretariat buildings when it has not taken a final decision on structural plans, designs of the proposed new Secretariat complex?” the Court observed.
A division bench of the Court, comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A Abhishek Reddy, passed the order in batch of PILs filed in 2016 by Congress MLA T Jeevan Reddy, advocate T Rajinikanth Reddy and the Forum for Good Governance, an NGO represented by its secretary M Padmanabha Reddy, seeking the court to grant stay of shifting Secretariat offices and demolition of existing structures to construct new buildings in its place.
Last year, Congress MP A Revanth Reddy and Prof PL Vishweshwar Rao, vice-president of Telangana Jana Samithi, also filed the PILs challenging the impending demolition of Secretariat buildings.
On earlier occasion, the bench made it clear that the Court has never stopped the State government from going ahead in preparing the architectural plans, costs estimation etc of the proposed complex.
The state government has got liberty to go ahead with its work of preparing plans, designs and so on. Pursuant to earlier direction of the court, State Additional Advocate General J Ramachandra Rao filed an additional counter affidavit in the case and urged the court to permit the government to proceed with construction of integrated Secretariat building after analysing different architectural plans which would be submitted by the architectural consultants. The area to be allotted to various departments will be finalised only after the cabinet approves the designs and final plans of the proposed new complex to be furnished by the architects, he added.
After perusing the contents of the additional affidavit, the bench questioned as to why the State government has shown lot of hurry to demolish the existing structures and in laying foundation stone for the new Secretariat when no final decision is taken on plans and designs of the proposed complex. Therefore, the stay granted earlier not to demolish it will continue, the bench noted.
“Earlier, the architects have taken lot of time to prepare plans and designs. At present, computers are present and have virtual reality wherein location of the proposed buildings, chambers, departments will be seen through specialised glasses. It does not take much time. Without having architectural designs, plans, cost estimate, area to be allotted for each department and so on, the cabinet took the decision to demolish the existing structures which is not reasonable. A decision has to be based on relevant facts”, the bench observed and made it clear that the stay will continue until further orders of the court.Now the case will come up for hearing only after the State Cabinet takes a final decision on the above and then makes a mention before the bench for hearing of the batch PILs.
Why State government is in a hurry, asks HC
After perusing the contents of the additional affidavit, the bench questioned as to why the State has shown lot of hurry to demolish the existing structures and in laying foundation stone for the new Secretariat when no final decision is taken on plans and designs.