HC quashes land allocation to TTD staff

Legal correspondent

Sets aside the GO 1153 that permitted alienation of 157 acres for house sites

In a far-reaching judgment, a Division Bench of the AP High Court comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice K. C. Bhanu on Wednesday set aside a State government order permitting the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams (TTD) to alienate 157 acres of prime land in and around Tirupati to its employees for house sites.

In October, 2008, GO-1153 was issued, proposing the allotment of lands to the TTD employees, including 25 acres each of the SV Poor Home and SV Dairy Farm and 100 acres in Brahmanapattu. The Bench disposed two writs filed by P.B. Ramesh and others associated with the Tirumala-Tirupati Samrakshna Samithi. In 2010, an interim stay was granted, restraining the TTD and government from acting further.

The petitioners contended that TTD could not have proposed such alienation of prime lands costing hundreds of crores of rupees in the name of house plots to employees, affecting shelter for the poor and the Goshala.

The petitioners argued that the 100 acres at Bramhanapattu belonging to the Sri Lakshmi Narayana Swamy temple and that TTD could not alienate this. Prime land in at Vinayaknagar and SGS College in Tirupati should not be given off like this.

The petitioners brought to the Court’s notice, provisions of the Endowments Act pertaining to alienation of temple lands and wondered how the State government had violated the statute.

The bench was told that the rules governing the activity of the TTD prohibited such private sale and precedents in the form of Supreme Court judgments were placed before the court.

The TTD contended that employees who selflessly served the temple were being given some symbolic relief. The Court was told that stringent conditions like each plot not being more than 200 square yards were incorporated and that this would be the last such allotment of temple land for house sites, citing a precedent. The employees’ associations impleaded themselves and urged the Court to vacate the stay.

The bench felt provisions of the AP Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act, 1987 were not scrupulously followed by the TTD and State government and set aside the GO.

Source : The Hindu