Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Friday, July 17, directed the state government not to take any forcible action against a group of homeowners in Doolapally in Hyderabad, days after authorities accused them of having built their houses within the Full Tank Level (FTL) area of the Fox Sagar Lake.
The FTL of a lake marks the maximum water spread level it can reach, and construction within this zone or its buffer area is barred under law to protect the water body.
Justice B Vijaysen Reddy passed the interim order while hearing an urgent petition filed by the homeowners challenging two government orders issued on July 7, which had revoked earlier clearances for their properties. The matter will next be heard on July 27.
The petitioners had built their houses on the disputed survey numbers after obtaining the required government permissions and occupancy certificates. Their land use had been formally changed from “recreational” to “residential” through government orders issued in 2019 and 2023.
The two fresh orders passed on July 7 this year revoked those very approvals, holding that the survey numbers actually fell within the FTL of Fox Sagar lake and that all permissions linked to them needed to be cancelled pending a fresh inquiry into how the lake’s FTL was fixed.
Appearing for the petitioners, senior counsel A Venkatesh and advocate K Pratik Reddy argued that the government’s own record, the official land survey map and a preliminary notification uploaded on the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority’s (HMDA) website, showed that the properties actually lay outside the lake’s buffer zone and FTL.
They also pointed out that the government itself had admitted that its examination of records and the inquiry into the lake’s FTL were still under way. This, they argued, made the cancellation of the homeowners’ permissions premature and arbitrary, since it had been carried out even before the inquiry was complete.
After going through the case records, the High Court granted interim protection to the homeowners, restraining the state authorities from taking any coercive steps, such as demolition or sealing, against their properties until the next date of hearing on July 27.
The court did not go into the merits of the dispute over the FTL itself, leaving that question open for further hearing.
