K Venkateshwarlu
Hyderabad
The Telangana High Court has issued notice to the Bharat Rashtra Samiti on a petition questioning the allocation of prime land towards the party office at Rs.100 per square yard, though the state government hadrecently sold land at Rs.100 crore per acre in Kokapetthrough e-auction.
While dealing with the petition filed against the State government on Wednesday for allocating land to BRS party offices at a throwaway price, a bench of the HC, comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice T Vinod Kumar, directed the state government to submit a counter and postponed the case for three weeks.
The petitioners’ advocate Chikkudu Prabhakar informed the Court that the State government had allocated 34 acres of land for the BRS party offices in the districts, including Hyderabad.
Prabhakar argued that the State government sold land at Rs.100 crore per acre in Kokapet; however, the same government allocated land to the BRS party offices at Rs.100 per square yard. The petitioner mentioned that the BRS party had already constructed party offices.
The state government had submitted its counter for the last 16 months, he placed on record.
Prabhakar recalled that the High Court, upon hearing the petition, had already directed the State government and BRS party president KCR to submit the counter. Prabhakar argued that problems would arise for people living around the places where the BRS party had been constructing party offices. The High Court bench observed that it would give directions to the Government to allocate lands to the BRS party at market prices even if the government and the Chief Minister failed to submit a counter affidavit.
The bench gave three weeks’ time to the government and Chief Minister KCR to submit the counter affidavit and postponed the hearing for three weeks.
