:: ORDER ::

Heard Sri Vedula Srinivas, learned Senior counsel representing Ms. Vedula Chitralekha, learned counsel for the petitioner on record and Sri Putta Krishna Reddy, learned Standing Counsel for Municipality appearing for respondent No.2. With their consent, this writ petition is being taken up for disposal at the admission stage.

2. This writ petition is filed seeking following prayer:-

“…to issue a Writ of Mandamus or any other appropriate Writ, Order or Orders, Direction or Directions to direct the 2nd respondent and its officials to act in accordance with law and not to take any coercive steps like causing demolition, partly or fully, of the staff quarters belonging to the petitioner, situated at Sy.No.64, 65, 125 to 129 and 131 to 134 of Kothapet Village, Sirpurkhagaz Nagar Mandal, Kumrambheem-Asifabad District, situated from ESI Gate to Rajiv Gandhi Chowrastha of Khagaznagar Town, except by following due process of law and pass…”

3.1. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner is a company, registered under the provisions of the Company’s Act. The petitioner is one of the paper mill companies established in the year 1938. It provides employment to nearly 1,002 staff and workers and nearly 1,400 contract workers. It is submitted that up to 1989, the area of Sirpur Kaghaznagar was under the control of Gram Panchayat. Thereafter, the respondent Municipality came into existence in 1989, and the petitioner came within its purview. Due to certain reasons beyond the control of the then management of the petitioner company, the petitioner became a sick unit, and its net worth has eroded. It stopped its activities in the year 2014 due to lack of working capital. The operational creditors of the petitioner have approached the NCLT, and filed CP (IB) No.52/9/HDB/2017. The RP submitted a resolution plan approved by the CoC, which was approved by the NCLT vide order dated 19.07.2018 and the same was to be implemented through a change in the management of the company. The petitioner company was taken over by J.K. Paper pursuant to the resolution plan, and it is presently being run under the said plan.

3.2. It is further submitted that the area in which the staff quarters are located belongs to the petitioner, and the said quarters have been in existence since six decades, and the petitioner is paying property tax to the 2nd respondent in respect of the staff quarters and other factory buildings as on date. It is further submitted that the employees of the 2nd respondent have begun making markings on 158 quarters inside the campus. On enquiry, they informed the petitioner’s representatives that road widening works would be undertaken in the said place and that the markings are for the demolition of the existing structures. It is further submitted that the 2nd respondent had neither informed the petitioner of any road-widening proposal nor issued any notice proposing to mark the existing structures for road widening and that no road widening can take place without acquiring the land and paying compensation to the petitioner. It is further submitted that the markings took place on 16.03.2026 from 05:00 PM. The petitioner addressed a letter dated 17.03.2026 to the 2nd respondent, but the office of the 2nd respondent refused to receive it despite attempts were made by the petitioner’s representative to serve it. The petitioner has served copies of the letter dated 17.03.2026 on the 3rd respondent and to the Sub-Collector. Aggrieved by the action of the respondents, the petitioner filed the present writ petition.

4. Learned Standing Counsel for respondent No.2, on written instructions, would submit that the Kaghaznagar Municipality has one main road, and the respondent has requested the petitioner to widen it, but they are not cooperating. It is submitted that the petitioner’s quarters were constructed long ago and some quarters are in a dilapidated condition. It is further submitted that the Municipal Council and MLA r