HC to HYDRAA: rule of law, not Ranganath
Telangana High Court slammed HYDRAA’s conduct in the Lothukunta land row and told the Chief Secretary to relieve commissioner A.V. Ranganath and name a replacement. HYDRAA is “not super cops of governance,” the court said, after repeated run‑ins over a private property the agency entered despite prior court orders, according to multiple reports.
The High Court reminded HYDRAA that enforcement agencies remain bound by court orders.
Content type: analysis
The Telangana High Court has had enough of HYDRAA playing outside the rulebook. In the Lothukunta dispute over roughly 40 acres, the court sharply criticised the Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Protection Agency and, according to reports, told the Chief Secretary to relieve HYDRAA commissioner A.V. Ranganath and appoint a replacement. The message, as quoted: this is rule of law, not rule of men.
According to reporting of Justice Jukanti Anil Kumar’s judgment, HYDRAA personnel went onto the property on July 17–18 despite earlier directions and undertakings to stay off. HYDRAA’s line that it acted at the Revenue Department’s request did not stand up when records were examined, the coverage says. The judge called the breach deliberate, not some routine administrative stumble.
This is not the first time the bench has pushed back on HYDRAA’s posture. In earlier hearings, the High Court said HYDRAA is not “super cops of governance” and reminded senior officers they are not above court orders. The latest order goes further by asking the state’s top bureaucrat to move Ranganath out and bring in someone else — a direct test of whether the government means its own talk about due process.
Ranganath, for his part, has publicly alleged that “land mafias” misled the courts and that the developer tried to usurp government land. Those are his claims; the court’s criticism in this case is about HYDRAA ignoring orders, not a clean chit to anyone else. If the state believes it owns the land, the place to prove it is the record, not a JCB.
For Telangana, the interest is simple: agencies that protect assets also have to respect court orders. The bench just drew that line in thick ink. The Congress‑run Union’s favourite law‑and‑order chest‑thumping won’t help HYDRAA here; the court wants compliance, not slogans.