Indian Express: Hyderabad: Thursday,
February 01, 2018.
Expressing
displeasure with the revenue authorities for their failure to disclose records pertaining
to prime government lands at Kapparada and Marripalem villages in Visakhapatnam
district of Andhra Pradesh in spite of a direction issued by the Information
Commission, the HC has recently directed the revenue authorities concerned to
furnish the information sought by the petitioner with regard to the above lands
under the Right to Information Act, and granted four weeks’ time for the
purpose.
Justice A
Ramalingeswara Rao passed this order on a petition filed by P Lakshminarayana,
an advocate, complaining that the authorities were not disclosing the records
and not even responding to the orders of the Information Commission on the said
lands with an intention to benefit private parties. The petitioner’s counsel
alleged that the valuable government lands worth crores of rupees were snatched
away, allotted and mortgaged, and revenue officials colluded with the
land-grabbers.
In fact, the
subject lands located in survey no.s 57/3, 4, 5, 58, 59/1, 2, 3, 66/1, 2, 3, 4,
58/1, 41/1, 2 figured in the government’s prohibited list but the district
collector removed them from the list without proper reason. Some of the lands
were allotted to Lakshmi Techno Solutions Private Ltd. When information was
sought from the local revenue officers regarding entries in land records, the
revenue authorities have stonewalled the applications under RTI Act. While
expressing displeasure with the attitude of the officers concerned, the judge
directed the revenue authorities to part with the information to the petitioner
within four weeks.
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