The Supreme Court on Monday quashed the preferential allotment of land within the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits to housing societies of MPs, MLAs, civil servants, judges, defence personnel and journalists, Live Law reported.
A bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta held that the government orders allowing such allotment were “capricious and irrational”. It also promoted inequality, which was a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution, the bench said. Article 14 ensures equality before the law.
The court made the remarks while setting aside a 2005 memorandum issued by the then Andhra Pradesh government, which classified MPs, MLAs, All India Services officers, state government officers, judges and journalists as a separate class for land allotment at basic rates.
It also quashed the subsequent memorandums issued in 2008 allotting the lands within the limits of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation to these sections, Live Law reported. The bench said that the allotments were bad in law and violated Article 14.
The court dismissed petitions filed by the Telangana government, the cooperative societies and its members against a verdict of the Telangana High Court in 2010 partially quashing the memorandums, The Times of India reported.
“This is a classic case of executive action steeped in arbitrariness, but clothed in the guise of legitimacy, by stating that the ostensible purpose of the policy was to allot land to ‘deserving sections of society’,” the bench said on Monday.
It said the allotments were an “abuse of power meant to cater exclusively to the affluent sections of the society, disapproving and rejecting the equal right to allotment of the common citizen and the socio-economically disadvantaged”.
The court said that when governments allocate land at discounted rates to a “privileged few”, it creates inequality and gives them an unfair “material advantage” that others cannot access.
“This preferential treatment conveys the message that certain individuals are entitled to more, not due to the necessities of their public office or the public good, but simply because of their status,” said the court.
Such practices create resentment and disillusionment among ordinary citizens, who see them as corrupt or unfair, weakening trust in democratic institutions, it added. This also “undermines solidarity and fraternity, reinforcing societal hierarchies rather than actively working to dismantle them.”
It added that the object of the government memorandums perpetuated inequality. “The policy does not meet the equality and fairness standards prescribed by the Constitution,” the bench added.
The cooperative societies and their members would be entitled to a refund of the entire amount deposited by them for the lands, the bench said in its order, adding that this amount would be quantified by the Telangana government.
It noted that the lease deeds executed by the state government in favour of the societies and its members would cancelled, according to Live Law.
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