Pay temples before acquiring land: High Court

Source:- indiatimes.com

HYDERABAD: Wondering how temple officials working under state government could give consent to the state to alienate temple land in favour of third parties, the Hyderabad High Court on Wednesday made it clear that it would not allow this in AP and Telangana. The HC further said that land transfer should be done only after invoking the provisions of the land acquisition Act of 2013 and, more importantly , only after depositing the compensation in the accounts of the respective temples.

“No point in depositing the money in the account of endowments department. It should go to the account of the temple and only then can the land of the temple be parted with,” said a bench of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice Shameem Akther. The interim order came as it heard scores of petitions filed by various government agencies, private parties and also the two state governments seeking permission from the court to hand over varying extents of temple land in the two states to third parties. The HC had earlier prevented the states, its machinery and even temples themselves from selling away temple land without prior approval of the court while hearing a PIL by Chittoor residents G Prabhakaracharyulu and E Giri Yadav .

CJ Ranganathan also expressed doubts over consent awards passed by authorities. When the petitions seeking partial modification of the restraint order came up for hearing on Wednesday , senior counsel S Ramachandra Rao told the bench that they have no objection if the state resorted to land acquisition under the 2013 Act.

“Let the temple be made a party to each such acquisition. Only after the compensation is paid to the temple, the land should be taken and not before that,” he said.

The bench agreed to the pleas of AP state seeking ali enation of certain temple land in East Godavari for facilita ting the ongoing construction of an ir rigation project, one plea by Telangana seeking 1,400 square yards of temple land near Charminar for constructing Bhavanipuram police station and similar other pleas only on the condition that they would be acquired under the 2013 Act.

For expanding NH-9 at Vijayawada, TTD came forward to part with 87 cents of 3.2 acres in Vijayawada. TTD counsel Sivaraj Srinivas conveyed their consent but the bench sought AP’s response.