₹ 1 lakh cost imposed on HYDRAA for ‘high-handed conduct’

Observing that fencing of two plots belonging to two women in survey No. 100 of Mallapur in Uppal of the city by the HYDRAA was “arbitrary and high-handed conduct”, the Telangana High Court instructed HYDRAA to pay ₹ 1 lakh each as costs to the two women. 

Justice N.V. Shravan Kumar of the HC, passing a common order in two separate writ petitions filed by P. Rajya Laxmi and J. Padmini, both above 60 years of age, also instructed the HYDRAA officials to immediately remove the fencing around the two plots. If the fencing was not removed, the HYDRAA should pay ₹ 1 lakh per day each to the petitioners till removal of the fencing, the judge said. 

The two women knocked the doors of the HC by filing independent pleas after the HYDRAA fenced their plots, each admeasuring 500 square yards at Babanagar Cooperative Housing Society Limited at Mallapur of Rangareddy district. They contended that HYDRAA officials erected fencing around their plots despite specific orders issued by the trial court declaring them as absolute owners of the plots. 

To ascertain facts, the judge appointed an Advocate Commissioner who made it clear that the two women earlier filed original suits in the court of the Additional District Judge of Medchal Malkajgiri and the court had passed orders declaring them as absolute owners of the two respective plots. The court also passed an injunction to remove the wall raised by the authorities on the scheduled properties and restrained officials from further interference with the rights of the women with regard to the two plots. 

The HYDRAA ought not to have fenced the subject lands when the rights of the petitioners were determined by the trial court, the judge said. Despite having observed emphatically earlier that fencing or fixing boards should be on the direction of the jurisdictional courts or the HC, the officials had “high handedly fenced” the plots, the order said.