Hyderabad: The Hyderabad high Court on Friday sought to know the stand of the Andhra Pradesh government on a petition challenging the land pooling scheme introduced by the state to acquire land to construct a new capital city for the state.

Justice A. Rajasheker Reddy was dealing with the petition by Beemavarapu Krishna Reddy and 31 other small and marginal farmers of Penumaka village of Tadepalli Mandal in Guntur district.

P. Sudhakar Reddy, counsel for the petitioners, submitted that the revenue authorities have deleted the lands of the petitioners from the scheme pursuant to the objection petitions filed under Rule-6 (2)(i) of AP Capital City Land Pooling Scheme (formulation and implementation) Rules, 2015.

He contended that as per Rule-7 of CRDA Act, the authorities bound to pass orders deleting the lands from the scheme by citing the reasons. The CRDA authorities have announced that the farmers under the Capital Region are permitted to raise crops only for the present season. He said deletion of petitioners’ land from the scheme may lead to forcible acquisition as the petitioners are solely dependent of the land for their livelihood.

Additional AG Dammalpati Srinivas submitted that the petitioners’ plea on the issue was premature. HC maintained that at present, the rights of the farmers are not infringed.

States quo in agri panel:

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar of the Hyderabad HC on Friday directed the Telangana government that status quo be maintained with regard to reducing the term of existing agricultural market committees in the state.

The bench was dealing with a writ petition filed by Gurunath Reddy and members of various agricultural market committees challenging an ordinance issued by the government on February 13 to expel the chairman, vice-chairman and members of the committees by reducing the term of office from three years to one year.

No relief to babu in mining case:

Justice S.V. Bhatt of the Hyderabad High Court on Friday denied to stay proceedings pending in the special CBI court against IAS officer Srilakshmi in illegal mining case of Obulapuram Mining Company owned by former minister of Karnataka Gali Janardhan Reddy.

Srilakshmi sought to quash the chargesheet filed by the CBI against her. R. Basanth, senior counsel appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the basis of CBI’s case against her that she had removed the clause ‘captive mining’ while finalizing mining lease in favor of OMC when she was secretary of industries and mines department is wrong .

When the CBI counsel has sought 6 weeks time file the counter affidavit on the plea, the senior counsel urged the judge to grant interim stay on the proceedings.

The judge granted time to the CBI to file counter.affidavit.