Telangana High Court had instructed Special Chief Secretary, Finance, K. Ramakrishna Rao, to appear before it on this September 29 to explain the delay over releasing money towards compensation in land acquisition cases pending before different courts in the State.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice T Vinod Kumar on Thursday issued Form-I notice to the senior IAS officer in a contempt of court matter filed by seven persons hailing from different districts.
They were seeking compensation under the Land Acquisition Act.
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The contempt of court matter arose out of a taken-up PIL petition.
In 2017, Mahbubnagar District Principal Judge wrote to the HC about the inordinate delay in releasing compensation to the farmers and villagers, whose lands were acquired for different projects, despite the court passing orders.
The letter was suo moto taken up as PIL petition by the HC.
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The bench instructed all the District Collectors to present details pertaining to the pending cases of execution petitions.
The judge stated that several persons from Adilabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda, Medak, Nizamabad, Ranga Reddy, Warangal, Jagityal and Kamareddy districts lost their lands but could not secure compensation.
After hearing the PIL plea, the bench issued orders to the State government to pay the compensation sums to the persons who lost their lands.
The government had to pay ₹52.70 crore towards compensation along with an interest amount of ₹5.48 crore to the persons who lost their lands.
Though the government had issued an order according administrative sanction for payment of the money, the Finance Department did not give the concurrence, the court said.