HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday directed the State’s Additional Advocate General (AG) J Ramachander Rao to get clear instructions from the CMO as to whether the government intends to revoke GO No. 111 within the next six months. The GO prohibits any construction activity in the catchment zone of the Himayatsagar and Osmansagar lakes on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
The court gave the direction after the publication of a news report in a vernacular daily publication which stated that the Chief Minister intended to scrap the order within the next six months.Taking a serious note of the ‘double standards’ adopted by the Telangana government in according permission for raising huge constructions on one parcel of land and denying the same permission on a different land, Chief Justice Hima Kohli, who is heading a division bench, observed: “When you want to act, you act, and when you don’t, you don’t. Even four-and-a-half years time is not good enough for you to act."
“You want comprehensive development of the entire area (Kokapet lands) for which you appoint a consultant, a report is considered and an agency is identified for taking up different works. Parties are identified and tenders are floated stating that it was the intention of the State government to take up development. But, when the government does not want to accord permissions to other land owners, then the State sits back, constitutes committees and those committees call for reports and then the government expands the scope of the body constituted.”
The Chief Justice was furious when the office of the Additional Advocate General dumped voluminous paper records pertaining to Kokapet and other parcels of land, containing details such as number of owners and survey numbers, which were in Telugu. She directed the Additional AG to furnish the proper material by Wednesday.
The CJ asked: “Why are we doing this exercise? If the government is revoking GO 111, then there is no point in adjudicating the writ petitions and the PIL.”Replying to the query, the Additional AG informed that he was not aware of the newspaper article which was being referred to, but assured that he would find out what the government intended and would come back with a reply the next day.”