Land allotment to IAC: Telangana HC fines state Rs 1000 per day till filing of affidavit

Hyderabad: Telangana High Court came down heavily on the state government counsel for not filing the counter affidavit in a PIL for the last 10 months.

Justice Kunuru Lakshman fined Rs 1000 per day for delay. It will be charged till the date of filing the counter affidavit. The court asked the counsel to deposit the amount in the TG State Legal Service Authority.

Justice Kunuru Lakshman expressed serious concern over the lackadaisical attitude of the state government officials. Ignoring the court's order was also viewed seriously.

The court was dealing with the two PILs filed challenging the action of the previous BRS government in allotting 3.70 acres of prime land worth crores of rupees for establishing the International Arbitration Centre at Hyderabad “free of cost”.

Earlier, the petitioners argued before the division bench of Justice K Lakshman and Justice K Sujana in November 2023. They said the prime land was allocated free of cost to a private entity (International Arbitration Centre). They said the International Arbitration Centre (IBC) is a private institution and not a government one.

The petitioners contended that if the International Arbitration Centre is to be established, then it has to purchase land by paying costs as laid by the Supreme Court in its various judgments.

The petitioners noted that the BRS government apart from allotting such precious land to the International Arbitration Centre has even sanctioned an amount of Rs. 3 crore per annum for its maintenance. They contended that the government has no power to sanction taxpayers' money.

The two PILs were filed by Koti Raghunath Rao, an advocate from Hyderabad, and Venkatarami Reddy, a retired employee and a resident of RK Nagar, Hyderabad.

They challenged the decision of the previous BRS government to dole out land at Raidurg village, Serilingampally Mandal, RR district under survey No 83/1.

The petitioners sought to stay on GO.Ms. 126 allotting Ac.3.70 cents Govt., and GO.Ms. No. 76 of 2021, sanctioning Rs 3 crore as operating expenses of IAMC Hyderabad.