A Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, comprising Justices Rakesh Kumar and J. Uma Devi, has posted the hearing on the proposed auction of government lands in Guntur and Visakhapatnam under ‘Mission Build AP’ to October 16.
During the arguments on Friday, the Judges directed the Secretaries of all the departments concerned to file affidavits by October 6 and the petitioners to submit replies by October 9 to facilitate the pronouncement of judgment on October 16.
When the additional Advocate-General P. Sudhakar Reddy expressed displeasure that the petitioners were obstructing every programme undertaken by the government, Mr. Justice Rakesh Kumar said the High Court was not a political platform to make such comments.
Guntur-based social activist Thota Suresh Babu had filed a PIL against the sale of government lands, alleging that the money was sought to be used for implementation of welfare schemes on which it was not supposed to be spent.
In the last hearing, the court said, “Since the State is perpetual and the government is one that changes once in five years, the authority with which it has mooted the auction of lands needs to be examined.”
The petitioner’s counsel, N. Srinivasa Rao, maintained that the government was a custodian of the properties and it could sell them only under certain exceptional circumstances.
