Banjara Hills land row: Telangana HC declines to intervene in dispute over 7 acres in Hyderabad; cites title complexities, directs parties to seek civil court

HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court has dismissed a batch of writ petitions related to a long-standing land dispute over seven acres of prime property on Road No. 4, Banjara Hills.

Justice CV Bhaskar Reddy declined to exercise writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution, citing serious tripartite title disputes and directed all parties to seek remedies through the civil court.The land in question, in survey No. 396 (now survey No. 225) in Shaikpet village, was originally owned by Maharaja Kishen Pershad, the former PM (dewan) of the erstwhile Hyderabad state.

The petitioners, legal heirs of the maharaja, claimed the land was orally gifted (hiba) to him in 1930, but was fraudulently sold in 1980-82 by descendants of his son, Nawab Khaja Asadullah Khan, allegedly without obtaining the clearances under the Urban Land Ceiling (ULC) Act, 1976.In his ruling, Justice Bhaskar Reddy said that the original ULC records were unavailable, with the state admitting that the files were destroyed after the repeal of the Act in 1999.tnn