Official helps landsharks on `1,000cr land
District official passed orders based on doubtful documents
Landsharks, in connivance with an official in Ranga Reddy district, are litigating over 76 acres in Manchirevula village valued at more than `1,000 crore.
Orders passed by an official have created a dispute over the ownership of land belonging to bigwigs like the family members of former VHP international president G. Pulla Reddy, the founder of the popular Pulla Reddy Sweets chain, and several individuals besides a residential project developed by Hyderabad-based construction company NCC Ltd.
Inquiries by Deccan Chronicle revealed that all of them possess the land in question for around four decades. But, ignoring their possession, the June 2019 directives of the Telangana High Court and the orders of predecessors, the official issued orders from August 2019 onwards aimed at helping litigants claim ownership.
These litigants claimed to have purchased 76 acres in 1955 by producing documents of questionable authenticity.
For one parcel of land, owned by the close relatives of a Telangana cadre IAS officer and her husband who is an IPS officer in Manchirevula, the official rejected a petition for the entry of litigants’ names in revenue records. But in other cases, he allowed similar petitions.
In Manchirevula, one Hyder Ali Mirza owned 76 acres in different survey numbers and at the time of implementation of the Agriculture Land Ceiling Act in 1973 and the Urban Land Ceiling Act (ULCA) in 1976 he was legally eligible to retain the land. From 1983 onwards, he or his legal heirs sold land in parcels to different persons whose names were entered into revenue records.
Some portion was acquired for the Outer Ring Road (ORR) and the owners who figured in revenue records were paid compensation.
In some cases, the government’s move to take back the land as per the ULC Act was contested in the High Court which issued orders in favour of the existing owners.
In all these instances, the original ownership of Hyder Ali Mirza and subsequent ownership of others who possess the lands was established by government agencies and courts.
However, members of a
“Kolluri family” approached then Gandipet tehsildar with a claim that their grandfather purchased land from Hyder Ali Mirza in 1955 through an unregistered sale deed. Based on photocopies of the documents furnished by Kolluri family members, she ordered their names entered in revenue records replacing the existing owners.
When the aggrieved persons approached then Revenue Minister Minister Mahamood Ali he directed the district collector to take appropriate action. Following his inquiry, the tehsildar was suspended and her orders withdrawn. The senior RR district official however reopened the cases and entertaining the pleas of litigants.