Hyderabad: A division bench of the Telangana High Court on Wednesday refused to grant any relief to senior IAS and IPS officials who allegedly purchased Bhoodan or Gairan lands in Nagaram village of Maheshwaram mandal, Rangareddy district. The bench upheld a single judge’s interim order directing the State government to place the disputed lands under the prohibited list, thereby restricting any further transactions.
The division bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Renuka Yara, was hearing four writ appeals filed by 10 individuals, including senior civil servants and their family members. The appeals were part of an ongoing legal battle stemming from a writ petition filed by Birla Mallesh, who alleged that survey numbers 181, 182, 194, and 195 in Nagaram village belonged to the Bhoodan Board and were involved in benami transactions carried out with the collusion of officials from the revenue and registration departments.
The officials approached the Bench asserting that the lands they purchased were private patta lands, not Bhoodan lands as alleged. They further contended that the single judge had granted relief beyond what the petitioner had actually prayed for.
Despite repeated pleas from senior counsels Desai Prakash Reddy and S. Niranjan Reddy, who represented the appellants, the division bench declined to interfere. It advised the appellants to approach the single judge directly with an application to vacate the interim directive. The bench emphasized that the order in question was ex parte and did not amount to a final adjudication.
The appellants included senior IPS officers Ravi Gupta, Mahesh Muralidhar Bhagwat, Sowmya Mishra, Swati Lakra, Tarun Joshi, B.K. Rahul Hegde, and others such as Rekha Shroff, Renu Goyal, B. Rahul Reddy, and Veerannagari Gowtham Reddy.
They also argued that the interim order was passed without issuing any notice or providing them an opportunity to be heard, and questioned the court’s jurisdiction in passing directions outside the original prayer of the petitioner.
Senior counsel Niranjan Reddy additionally urged the bench to expunge certain critical observations made by the single judge, arguing they had sent “wrong signals.” The division bench, however, refused to entertain this request.
With the interim order remaining in force, the disputed lands will continue to be on the prohibited list unless the appellants succeed in obtaining relief from the single judge.
