A co-operative housing society had fraudulently sold away 3,800 square yards of prime land belonging to Osmania University to third parties, Advocate General B.S. Prasad told Telangana High Court on Thursday.
Disclosing this before a bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice A. Rajashekar Reddy, the AG said the State had complained to the police soon after realising the fraud allegedly played by Tulasi Co-operative Housing Society. A criminal investigation had been launched into the matter.
Earlier, a research scholar, Poladi Ramana Rao, wrote a letter to the HC seeking to know status of land allegedly sold by the society to private persons.
The HC suo moto took up the letter as PIL petition and issued notices to the university authorities and the State government to explain their stand.
When the matter came up for hearing on Thursday, the AG explained that a litigation arose between the society and the university authorities over 4,800 square yards of the university land. The society claimed that it bought the land from the university in 1976.
Eventually, the society won the court case and the land title based on the report of a surveyor. The society made 4,800 square yards land into 14 plots and sold them to private persons. The AG claimed that recently the society management sold 3,800 square yards of more land to nine others. This new piece of land was not part of the 4,800 square yards of land but a separate land parcel over which the society has no right of ownership, the AG said.
Counsels appearing for the plot buyers contended that their clients were genuine buyers. They said the university authorities are playing a proxy war through the research scholar.
The AG refuted their contentions and told the court that a detailed affidavit would be filed on the matter.
The bench posted the matter after six weeks, instructing the State to file the counter affidavit.