Municipal authorities possess a mandatory statutory duty to address complaints of unauthorized construction and encroachments by following due process, including notice and hearing, as planned urban development cannot be compromised by administrative inaction or the regularization of illegal structures.

ORDER:

This writ petition is filed questioning the action of respondent Corporation in laying the 30 feet main road in the petitioner’s colonies situated at East Anandbagh, Malkajgiri, Hyderabad, TS-500047 without removing the encroachments on the public road, pavements and streets as being illegal, arbitrary, unconstitutional, violation of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India, violation of Section 405 of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, 1955 (for short ‘GHMC Act’). A consequential prayer was made seeking a direction to respondent Corporation to forthwith stop the laying of the 30 feet main road in the remaining 25 meters stretch in the Petitioner’s Colonies over the subject area and consider the representations dated 24.03.2026, 27.02.2026 and 25.11.2025.

Brief facts of the case as stated are that the petitioners have submitted representations dated 25.11.2025, 27.02.2026, 24.03.2026 to the respondent authorities requesting for relaying of C.C road in Kalyan Nagar CIEFL Colony, East Anand Bagh upon the judgment of Hon’ble High Court in W.P.No.10338 of 2025 and C.C.No.1101 of 2023, requesting for survey and action on unauthorized construction encroaching Kalyan Nagar Main Road, requesting to stop the road laying forthwith until officials visit the site and resolve the disputes, respectively. It is further submitted that though several representations were submitted to the respondent authorities concerning various alarming issues raised in the representations cited supra, till date no action has been initiated on the said representations. Aggrieved by the said inaction on the part of the respondent authorities, the present writ petition is filed.

Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that since petitioner’s representations dated 25.11.2025, 27.02.2026 and 24.03.2026 are still pending for consideration, though the said representations are acknowledged, the respondent authorities may be directed to consider the same and take action in a time bound period.

On the other hand, Mr. G. Madushuduan Reddy, learned Standing Counsel for GHMC appearing for respondent Nos.2 to 5 fairly submits that they would consider the representations of the petitioners and pass appropriate orders strictly in accordance with law under the provisions of GHMC Act, 1955 and prays this Court to pass appropriate orders.

Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Standing Counsel appearing for respondent Nos.2 to 5 and perused the material made available on the record.

Since this Court, time and again, directed the Municipal Authorities to initiate action against the illegal constructions by following due process of law, it is noticed that the authorities are failing to initiate action against the illegal constructions. However, in some of the cases, authorities are issuing statutory notices and thereafter not proceeding further to initiate further course of action unless writ petitions are filed for not considering complaints/ representations made to civic authorities.

It is not out of place to mention Section 7 (6) of the Telangana State Building Permission Approval and Self Certification System (TG-bPASS) Act, 2020 (for short ‘the TG-bPASS Act’) encourages citizens to put on notice to the Civic Authorities regarding unauthorized constructions. Section 7 (6) of the TG-bPASS Act is extracted for reference.

“7. Approval of Building Permissions-

….

(6) Citizens shall be encouraged to bring to the notice of Municipality and District Collector cases where unauthorized construction or construction in violation of or in excess of permissions, in the manner prescribed. The identity of such informers shall be kept confidential. All such cases shall be examined within a week from such information and appropriate action initiated. The information shall be incentivized in all such cases where the information, furnished by him is found to be correct.”

For better appreciation, this Court deems it appropriate to refer some of the r