Civic body delays action in land case

The GHMC has been sitting on a case for four years after the Vigilance and Enforcement (V&E) department recommended action against seven officials of the civic body for granting permission for construction of houses on land belonging to the Jayagiri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple in Malkajgiri.

The temple land, worth crores, has allegedly been illegally registered in the name of a contractor. The inordinate delay in taking action against the officials came to light recently through an RTI application.

In January 2017, the municipal administration department issued a memo based on the V&E report recommending that criminal cases be registered against then Malkajgiri town planning supervisor B. Prabhakar Reddy, who presently works in the GHMC Kapra Circle 1, and Azmath Ali, town planning supervisor of Malkajgiri in Circle 17.

The department recommended cancelling the building permission for the piece of land.

The GHMC has been sitting on a case for four years after the Vigilance and Enforcement (V&E) department recommended action against seven officials of the civic body for granting permission for construction of houses on land belonging to the Jayagiri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple.

The department said that permission should not be issued without verification of documents and ground verification, open spaces and common sites as per the HUDA approved layout among others.

The GHMC commissioner, responding to the municipal administration memo, issued a reminder to the deputy commissioner Malkajgiri to furnish the action taken report and draft the charges.

Retired IFS officer Padmanabha Reddy, who filed the query, said that in 2003, nine officials, seven of them of the municipality, a tahsildar, and a sub-registrar, forged the land records of the temple.

“The sub-registrar registered the land in the name of a contractor. The town planning supervisor granted sanction for construction of houses. Fourteen years later, the case is yet to take any shape,” Mr Reddy said.