High Court orders Army to guard Secunderabad land, then suspends the order hours later

A Telangana High Court judge on Thursday dictated an order to deploy Indian Army personnel to guard a disputed 40-acre property in Secunderabad and to detain any HYDRAA or police official who entered it, then kept the order in abeyance the same afternoon after the state gave an assurance of no further interference.

Justice Jukanti Anil Kumar was hearing a contempt petition filed by M/s Shantha Sriram Constructions Pvt Ltd, which alleges that officials of the Hyderabad Disaster Response and Assets Protection Agency (HYDRAA) violated the court's earlier orders by interfering with its land measuring 40 acres in Survey Nos 1 and 2 of Lothkunta village, Malkajgiri mandal, Medchal-Malkajgiri district. It is the third contempt petition the firm has filed against HYDRAA on the same allegation.

The reason the judge gave was not the location of the land but the conduct of the state. "Though the court is conscious to not involve the army in such issues, we are doing so as we have lost faith in the state. Those sitting in the Secretariat should also know what is happening," the court observed, according to Telangana Today.

The judge directed the High Court's Registrar General to contact the senior-most Brigadier of the local Bison Division and arrange for ten Army personnel to be at the site by Friday. "Let the army personnel be deployed there. Let them take into custody anybody, including HYDRAA, coming into the site and put them in the barracks. Seize the vehicles also," the judge said, as reported by Siasat.

The court had already pulled up HYDRAA Commissioner A.V. Ranganath earlier in the week. "The filing of not one or two but three contempt petitions on the same issue shows how little regard you have for court orders. Such arrogance is unacceptable," the judge told him, per Deccan Chronicle. The bench pointed to photographs submitted by the petitioner showing HYDRAA vehicles on the land, which it treated as a violation of its earlier orders; the state's counsel denied that officials had entered the property.

The court was careful to distinguish HYDRAA's legitimate work. It said efforts to protect lakes, drains and water bodies were commendable but could not be carried out in violation of judicial orders or by entering private property unlawfully, and that if the government objected to its orders it had legal remedies but was bound to comply until they were set aside.

In the afternoon, Advocate General A. Sudarshan Reddy said HYDRAA officials had not entered the disputed land in the previous two days and sought time to file an affidavit. The court deferred the direction on that assurance and adjourned the matter to Friday.

The dispute triggering the case was HYDRAA's demolition drive of July 17, in which the petitioner says a compound wall was demolished and structures damaged on the 40-acre plot despite existing court orders.

HYDRAA issued a written clarification the same night denying that it had touched the private land at all. It said the land belonging to Shantha Sriram Constructions lies in Survey Nos 1 and 2, while the government land it fenced off on July 18 — about 106 acres in the Lothukunta area of Secunderabad Cantonment — lies in General Land Register Nos 243 and 255, roughly three kilometres away. "GLR No. 243 and 255 have nothing to do with the court orders on private land regarding Survey No. 1 and 2," the agency said.

HYDRAA also alleged that the firm, which obtained layout permissions in 2007 on private land in Survey Nos 1 and 2, cited GLR 243/P and 255/P when applying for a revised layout permission in 2026, and that revenue officials are investigating. "HYDRAA believes that all these matters will become clear after a full survey is conducted," its release stated. It said it had protected public property worth Rs 10,000 crore. Both the alleged survey-number switch and the value are HYDRAA's own claims, the first of which is still under investigation.

The record does not establish who the land ultimately belongs to — the central factual dispute the survey is meant to settle — and does not cover Friday's scheduled hearing. As of the last documented hearing, the Army order stood suspended and no deployment had taken place.