FGG exposes 19-year cover-up in Malkajgiri temple land scam
Hyderabad: A land dispute involving alleged illegal registration and construction on temple land in Malkajgiri is experiencing an extended delay in disciplinary action, alleges the Hyderabad-based NGO Forum for Good Governance (FGG), claiming that the Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) department is not taking action against the implicated officials.
The case dates back to 2003 and concerns land owned by the Jayagiri Laxmi Narasimha Swamy Temple. The FGG told the Chief Minister that nine officials were involved: seven from GHMC, one Tahsildar, and one Sub-Registrar. They are accused of working together to falsify land records, which allowed the sub-registrar to register the temple land to a private contractor. GHMC town planning supervisors then approved homes to be built on the land.
The issue came to light following press reports, prompting the Vigilance & Enforcement (V&E) department to investigate. The V&E submitted its report to the government in 2014, eleven years after the alleged offense.
The V&E department's report recommended stringent action, including registering criminal cases against two officers, initiating departmental action against the remaining seven officials, cancelling the illegal building permissions on the government land, and verifying open spaces and common sites in the layout.
RTI requests denied
The government officially accepted these recommendations. In a letter dated November 7, 2014, it directed the Commissioner of GHMC to take action as suggested by the V&E department.
However, the FGG has alleged that a decade after that government order, no concrete action has been taken. “Virtually, the inquiry report of V&E is kept in cold storage,” said M. Padmanabha Reddy, President of the Forum for Good Governance, in the letter.
The FGG has claimed that the MA&UD department has diverted and delayed the matter by repeatedly requesting additional proposals from other departments rather than proceeding with disciplinary action. The forum also noted that none of the accused officials were placed under suspension.
For the past six years, the MA&UD department has refused to share information under the Right to Information Act, saying that releasing it would interfere with further action on the disciplinary case.
“This is a delay in taking action to support the officials in question,” Reddy added. Now, 19 years after the original offence and almost a decade since the inquiry report, the FGG has requested that the Chief Minister investigate the delay and expedite the resolution of the V&E report to ensure accountability.
