Hyderabad: In a significant order, the Telangana high court made it clear that district collectors do not have the authority to denotify forest land and convert it into general land. The court’s directive comes in response to a petition concerning the sale of 72 acres of land in survey number 249 in Kongarakalan village in Ibrahimpatnam mandal of Rangareddy district.
Justice CV Bhaskar Reddy directed state and local officials to cease any transactions related to this land. The petition, filed by K Praveen Goud, challenged the Rangareddy district collector’s decision to order the removal of 72 acres from the list of prohibited land parcels.
The judge ruled that no changes in land classification could be allowed.
“You should not allow any change in the nature or classification of this land. Nor can any third party interests be created over this land,” the judge said, directing the officials to treat the land as prohibited land till the court completes its examination.
The petitioner’s counsel, Vijay B Paropakari, explained that the 1,026-acre plot in question had originally been notified as reserve forest land under the Telangana Forest Act, 1967. The district collector’s letter, dated Nov 16, 2019, instructed officials to remove the 72 acres from the prohibited list.
Furthermore, records showed that land had been sold to various buyers, including Nannapaneni Nanditha, Dandu Karunakar, S Radhakrishna Reddy, and Sompally Sainath Reddy. The collector also directed that pattadar passbooks be issued to the new landowners. However, the petitioner argued that the collector had not followed due process, as required by law, and had not conducted any inquiry before denotifying the land.
After reviewing the case, Justice Bhaskar Reddy observed that no record of the collector’s letter to denotify the land could be found.
He expressed a prima facie opinion that the district collector did not have the authority to denotify land previously designated as forest land under the Forest Act.
The judge further directed the revenue department principal secretary and the district collector to clarify whether the land is indeed reserve forest land and whether the denotification process followed legal procedures.
The court has asked for responses by Feb 24, and also requested clarification on the validity of a memo issued by the administrative officer of the district collectorate regarding this matter.
