HYDERABAD: Over 70 petitions have been filed in the high court from Attapur property owners questioning the action of the state in cancelling sale deeds of small house plots, which people had bought two decades ago.
According to them, the state and the waqf board are trying to harm them by declaring these areas as waqf land in a clandestine manner without any notice.
The HC asked the authorities not to take any coercive action for four weeks.
“The state made unlawful amendments to the Registrations Act and brought in Rule 261 K and Rule 243 through its GO MS No 121 on June 1, 2016, and equipped itself with powers to be used against poor people behind their backs,” claimed A Kumar Goud and B Lavanya, whose petitions have come up before a bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, on Monday.
Their counsel Amancharla V Gopal Rao argued that the Registrations Act was a central law and the state cannot bring in unilateral changes this way.
“If a state wants to amend this central Act, there are only two ways.
Either Parliament has to amend the Act or the President has to accord assent to the changes,” the counsel said.
He revealed interesting things about the land whose total extent was a little more than seven acres.
The state and waqf board were claiming this land.
But more than 70 persons had bought tiny extents ranging from 75 square yards to 100 yards from one S Hanumanth Reddy, the counsel said.
“The state and the waqf had lost their cases in civil courts, high court, and even the Supreme Court.
And now they chose this deceitful way after they lost their case in the Supreme Court in 2019,” the counsel contended.
Suddenly on March 19, 2021, the waqf and registration department officials had executed a cancellation deed in respect of all plots declaring the registrations made in favour of the 70 plot owners as invalid.
And, none of the plot owners were notified about this change.
“What is more interesting is the fact that the registrations in favour of these plot owners were approved by the same waqf board officials and registered by the registration officials all these years,” Gopal Rao said.
“We have made the central government also a respondent because the Centre has to come on record and inform this court whether the action of the state in bringing in such unilateral changes to a Central Act is a valid exercise of power,” he said.
The bench issued notices to the state, the waqf board, the registrations department, and the central government and asked them to file their counters within four weeks.
“Till then, do not take any coercive action against the petitioners,” the bench said.
Waqf board counsel Abu Akram too assured the court that they would not take any coercive action till then.
Attapur land sale deeds: Property owners move T’gana HC
