HYDERABAD: In a bizzare turn of events, GHMC staff, on one hand, demolished a compound wall of 1,834-square yard private property near Erragadda Metro station without acquiring it, while GHMC commissioner D Lokesh Kumar, on the other, appeared before the high court on his own and assured that he will rebuild the demolished wall.
Justice P Madhavi Devi of the high court on Thursday directed the commissioner to file an affidavit on oath conveying his assurance to rebuild the compound wall.
It all began when an urgent plea, in the form of a lunch motion, was moved by one Habib Alladin, an 80-year-old property owner, bringing to the notice of the court the high-handed action of the GHMC officials who took over his property and demolished the compound wall last Friday. They sought it for widening of a nearby nala. “We asked them to acquire the land under the new Land Acquisition Act,” counsel DV Sitarama Murthy said, conveying the concerns of the property owner.
The GHMC staff did not care for the law, he said. GHMC filed a counter in which it said that the land belongs to the government and that the petitioner was an encroacher. Upon coming to know about the matter reaching the high court, the GHMC commissioner rushed to the court and made a statement that was diametrically opposite to the contents of the affidavit. According to Kiran, the counsel for the petitioner, the court did not summon the GHMC chief. He came on his own and filed an affidavit on oath. The judge came down heavily on GHMC for invading into private properties of citizens this way and was thinking in terms of punishing the violators. It was at this stage the commissioner made a sudden appearance and saved the corporation from getting ridiculed.
