By IANS,
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Friday asked the defence ministry to consider giving an alternate plot to a co-operative housing society in Secunderabad cantonment in lieu of land which it had allegedly encroached to construct 300 flats for army personnel.
The apex court’s vacation bench of Justice Deepak Verma and Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan said that it could even acquire the disputed 7.51 acres, but noted that acquisition proceedings would take too long and would not be completed before the next hearing of the case listed for June 16.
The court gave the options to the central government, while hearing its appeal challenging the Sep 6, 2002 Andhra Pradesh High Court order upholding the trial court’s ruling that this land did not belong to the army but to the Vasavi Co-Operative Housing Society.
Asking the government to opt for either of the options, the court asked the counsel P.S. Narasimha, appearing for the society, as to what it was doing when the army was constructing these houses.
“What were you doing earlier. You allowed 300 flats to come up. They ought not have come up overnight,” Justice Verma said.
The government contended that the land located in Kakaguda village belonged to it after the then Nizam of Hyderabad gave it for use of the British army. It claimed that in 1943, the owner of the adjoining land B. Venkata Narasimha Reddy, who was also the patwari (village revenue official) manipulated the revenue records to show the defence land as a part of his family holding.
It said Narasimha Reddy’s family had 33 acres and 12 guntas of land which was divided three-ways in 1939, but afterwards it inexplicably increased to 41 acres and 32 guntas. As a result, there was always a mismatch between the revenue records and the actual physical possession of the land.
The dispute arose when the housing society, formed of people who individually bought small pieces of land from Narasimha Reddy’s family and later came together to form the co-operative, alleged that the army had encroached upon its land and sought its possession.