Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court once again extended its stay order against the demolition of the old buildings of the Secretariat. The court had while hearing the plea of the Prof.Vishweshwar Rao stayed on the demolition of the secretariat buildings earlier and directed the State to furnish the details in the counter affidavit today and as per the instruction of the Bench the Advocate General, today submitted the counter affidavit. The court while hearing the plea instructed to continue the stay till tomorrow. Earlier today on this issue the counsel for the petitioner while raising the issue of the environment clearance for the demolition of the old buildings observed that the government has not taken the necessary environmental clearance however the Advocate general Prasad told the bench that there is no need of the environmental clearance for the same. He said that the GHMC approval has taken for this purpose and the environmental clearance is needed to build the new buildings, not for the demolition of the old buildings. AG told the court that the govt will seek the necessary approval of the environment panel for the construction of the new buildings.
The High Court directed the Center to give an explanation tomorrow on the environmental permit and submit any judgments that would strengthen the state government’s contention. The state government today submitted to the high court a cabinet resolution regarding the demolition of the secretariat. The court has posted the next hearing for tomorrow.
It may be recalled that the state Govt has started the demolition of the old buildings of the Secretariat to build the new buildings which were the center of the administration in the Nizam era and several Chief Ministers of the earlier United Andhra Pradesh and the Hyderabad State-run their administration from the old buildings of the Secretariat. The TRS government headed by the KCR wants the new buildings in the place of old buildings. For this purpose after the green signal from the HC the govt has started the demolition process however a few days back the Court has stayed the demolition process and today once again it has extended the same.
