On Sept 17, the Telangana High Court sent a notification to the State and its municipal authorities requesting them to clarify their position on a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) submitted by the Good governance Forum which questions the legal validity of the recent decision of the State to regularise illegal and unauthorised layouts in Telangana.

High Court Asks TS For LRS 2020 Legal Validity 

Mr M Padmanabha Reddy, Forum's General Secretary stated that this decision of the State runs contrary to the spirit of the constitution. We also question the constitutional validity of GO MS No 131, as it was addressed on Aug 31, 2020, he claimed in his plea.

General Advocate BS Prasad informed the jury that they would address this soon and requested time. Senior counsel S Satyam Reddy appeared at the petitioner's forum to seek an order of restriction from the court to prohibit the State from proceeding in the future.

However, at this point, the Chief Justice Bench Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy refused such interim relief. The judges said at the request of the AG that they present their counter in two weeks, that they first have to see the state response. For further hearing, the bench posted the case to Oct 8.

Padmanabha Reddy stated in his petition that while the State declared that it wanted to put all unauthorised layouts into a planned development stream in its layout regulation framework, but it does not match to the concept of planned development.

Under this new policy, it says all unauthorised layouts will be regulated, leaving no open space for roads or other amenities. The State seeks to grant an approval stamp on all these illegal layouts as the decision of the government will be responsive to the outcome of the present case of PIL.

By: Shailaja K