Kokapet land case: High Court rules in favour of HMDA

The Telangana High Court on Wednesday cleared the long-pending Kokapet lands case in favour of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA).

With this, the HMDA’s plans to develop the Kokapet lands worth Rs.1,000 crore are expected to be fast-tracked as the court has declared that the land belongs to the HMDA.

The matter was pending for the last 15 years as the petitioners filed the case in Supreme Court and High Court. The High Court had earlier delivered the verdict in favour of the HMDA twice in the same case. Even the Supreme Court had cleared the case in favour of HMDA.

However, the petitioners again approached the court and filed two petitions in 2019



stating that they had purchased the lands from one JS Krishnamurthy, who is General Power of Attorney holder of late Nawab Nasrat Jung Bahadur-I.

Subsequently, the petitioners managed to get status quo orders from the court. Supreme Court senior advocate V. Giri, who argued the case on behalf of the HMDA, brought to the notice of the court that the petitioners had filed the case earlier and lost it.

The court then observed that the petitioners misled the court by hiding that they had lost the case in Supreme Court and the High Court as well. Taking a serious note of the petitioners’ attitude, the court imposed a fine of Rs.1 lakh on them.