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Construction by Lanco Hills, Emaar stayed

HYDERABAD: In a far-reaching order, Justice V. Eswariah of the High Court on Thursday restrained Lanco Hills Project and Emaar Properties from taking up any construction activity in the 400 acres of land in Manikonda village, the IT hub on the outskirts of Hyderabad city.

The judge passed the interim orders after declaring that these were indeed Wakf lands and do not belong to the Government, in a writ petition filed by M. A. Rahman, TRS MLC.

Mr. Rehman contended that these were Wakf lands belonging to Dargah Hazrat Hussain Shah Vali.

But now these lands were being given away to private parties by the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) without any authority.

He named Emmar Properties, Lanco Hills, Microsoft, Infosys Technologies, WIPRO, VJIL and POLARIS as the beneficiaries. Satyam Reddy, the counsel for the petitioners, said interim orders were needed as Emmar and Lanco Hills were going ahead with development.

The judge did not appreciate the Government and the APIIC’s stand that these were Jagir lands and vest with them after the Jagir Abolition Act.

Tracing the history of Wakf and provisions of the Wakf Act, Justice Eswariah in a 40-page order, felt that the land had been given as service and was a ‘mushrootatiyat’ notified in Nazim-E-Atiyat.

The notification issued in April 2006 also shows it as Wakf property.

He said: “I am prima facie of the opinion that the property belongs to Almighty God alone and God alone is the owner of the property but not the Government.”

Dealing with the contention that a huge amount of money had been spent by the companies to buy land from APIIC, he said that “even a golden city on the property of Wakf cannot be permitted unless this land is purchased by law under the Wakf Act.”

The judge posted the matter before Division Bench which is already hearing connected matters.

He did not entertain Lanco Hills counsel’s plea for suspending the order for a week.

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