Telangana HC to hear PIL against issuing pattas to encroachers

Hyderabad: Forum for Good Governance (FGG), a non-profit organisation has moved the Telangana High Court against the decision of the Tribal Welfare Department to issue pattas to encroachers.

The principal secretary of the Tribal Welfare Department issued an impugned memo dated November 5, 2021, to undertake a special drive to give pattas to illegal, ineligible, and non-existing encroachers of Reserve Forests to the extent of 11.5 lakh acres.

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Following the issuance of the memo, FGG Secretary M Padmanabha Reddy filed a PIL urging the court to order the defendants not to distribute patta certificates while the PIL was pending and to stay the contested memo issued on November 5, 2021.

The FGG named the state government represented by its chief secretary (GAD), the Union of India, the secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the special chief secretary, Environment, Forest, Science and Technology department, the principal secretary, Tribal Welfare Department, the commissioner of Tribal Welfare, the principal chief conservator of Forests, and the secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

The PIL will likely be listed before the CJ bench in a day or two.