HC declines to interfere with single judge order over IPS officers, others’ appeals in Bhoodan land case

The Telangana High Court on Wednesday declined to interfere with a single judge order instructing State government to keep Bhoodan lands in Nagaram village of Maheshwaram mandal in Rangareddy district in prohibited list. 

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Renuka Yara, after hearing four writ appeals filed by 10 persons (who are among the 76 respondents in a writ petition over Bhoodan lands), suggested to the appellants to file applications before the single judge for vacation of the order. Despite repeated appeals by senior counsels Desai Prakash Reddy and S. Niranjan Reddy, appearing for the 10 appellants, to set aside the single judge order, the bench led by the CJ suggested to them to go back to the single judge bench for securing relief. 

The four appeals were filed by IPS officers Ravi Gupta, Mahesh Muralidhar Bhagwat, Sowmya Mishra, Swati Lakra, Tarun Joshi, B.K. Rahul Hegde, Rekha Shroff (wife of IPS officer Umesh Shroff), Renu Goyal (wife of IPS officer Jitender Kumar Goyal) B. Rahul Reddy (son of B. Janardhan Reddy) and Veerannagari Gowtham Reddy. They were among the 76 respondents in a writ petition filed by one Birla Mallesh alleging that lands under survey numbers of 181, 182, 194 and 195 in Nagaram village of Maheshwaram mandal in Rangareddy belonged to Bhoodan Board. 

The petitioner sought a direction for an inquiry into the alleged benami transactions of sale and purchase of these Bhoodan lands by collusion of some persons with top officials in revenue, registration and other departments. The single judge passed an interim order instructing the government to keep the lands under prohibited list, observing that prima facie the said lands appeared to be belonging to Bhoodan Board. 

The appellants’ counsels contended that the ‘impugned order’ was passed beyond the relief sought by the petitioner. Moreover, the order was passed without issuing notices to the appellants and in their absence. They claimed that the lands purchased by their clients were patta lands and did not belong to Bhoodan Board. With the Acting Chief Justice declining to interfere with the single judge order, one of the counsels of the appellants, citing a Supreme Court verdict, said the HC can set aside even an ex-parte order if it had the ingredients of a judgement or qualified to be an order. 

The division bench said the ex-parte order of the single judge did not fall in the ambit of final judgement and the appellants had the option of venting their grievance before the single judge explaining their grounds. Senior counsel Niranjan Reddy appealed to the bench to expunge the serious remarks made by the single judge towards the end of the order if the order cannot be set aside as they sent wrong signals. 

However, the bench did not agree to expunge any paragraphs of the single judge order and said the request cannot be entertained.