HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court has maintained the Special Court for Land Grabbing Cases (LGC) judgments while dismissing the petition of Y Amruthabai and five others seeking a direction declaring they are not land-grabbers.
After reviewing the records, the division bench of Justice Shameem Akthar and Justice EV Venugopal concluded that the Special Court neither declined to allow admissible and material evidence nor erroneously admitted inadmissible evidence.
Furthermore, there is no evidence on record that the Special Court operated in flagrant violation of procedural procedures or violated the principles of natural justice. There is no obvious error on the face of the proceedings to grant the prayed-for writ of certiorari.
Furthermore, the Special Court did not act without jurisdiction, nor did it act in excess of it, nor did it neglect to execute the power vested in it. There are no grounds to intervene with the judgement by using this court’s extraordinary power under Article 226 of the Indian Constitution.
The background of the case is that the then Nampally MRO filed an application with the Special Court for LGC claiming title to an extent of 1,789 square metre of land located in Sy.No.93/1, 93/2, and 94/part of Nampally village and mandal, Hyderabad district, according to a Town Survey Land Register extract from the years 1982-1983.
He claimed that the respondents had illegally taken possession of the said extent of land, and prayed to declare the respondents as ‘land-grabbers’, the structures raised by them over the application schedule property as illegal and unauthorized construction, to evict them from the land grabbed by them and to deliver vacant possession to the applicant/State, to order immediate prosecution of the respondents for engaging in land grabbing and pay a compensation of Rs 96,000 for unlawful possession by the respondents.
The matter was brought before the Special Court and on May 11, 1998, the factum of taking cognizance of the matter was published in the Andhra Pradesh Gazette, inviting any objections from parties with an interest in the application’s schedule land. However, there was no opposition.
In light of this, the LGC decided that the subject land is government property, prima facie establishing the government’s possession of the application Schedule land, and concluding that the petitioners lack any legitimate claim. In light of these facts, the special court was within its rights to record a conclusion that the petitioners are occupying the scheduled land illegally and without authorisation.
‘PETITIONERS LACK LEGITIMATE CLAIM’
In light of this, the LGC court decided that the subject land is government property, prima facie establishing the government’s possession of the application Schedule land, and concluding that the petitioners lack any legitimate claim