Municipal authorities have a statutory duty to safeguard public roads and open spaces from unauthorized encroachments; failure to act against such violations encourages urban chaos and dereliction of duty, requiring immediate intervention from the courts to order the restoration of public amenities in accordance with established town planning laws.

ORDER:

This writ petition is filed seeking the following relief:-

“…to issue a writ, order or direction particularly in the nature of Writ of Mandamus directing the respondents 1 to 4 to safeguard the public road existing on the Northern and Western side of the Block No.16, HIG – II, Baghlingampally, Hyderabad which are connecting to Chikkadpally and restore it to the public use by removing the encroachments by declaring the action of the respondents 1 to 4 in not considering the said grievance of the individual petitioners as well as the association given in representation dated 08.07.2025…”

2. The petitioners are aggrieved by the inaction of respondent Nos.1 to 4 in safeguarding the public road existing on the Northern and western side of Block No.16, HIG-II, Baghlingampally, Hyderabad, which is connecting to Chikkadpally area. The petitioners pray to restore the said road to the public use by removing encroachments. The petitioners also gave a representation/grievance to respondent Nos.1 to 4 on 08.07.2025 and since the representation has not been acted upon, aggrieved by the said inaction, the present writ petition is filed.

3. The petitioner No.1 is the president of 14th petitioner Association and the petitioner Nos.2 to 13 are the other flat owners and members of the 14th petitioner Association. The petitioner would submit that they have purchased their respective flats in Block No.16-II, HIG-II, Baghlingampally, Hyderabad from erst while AP. Housing Board (hereinafter referred to as Housing Board). Earlier, the Housing Board had acquired/allotted the land in Baghlingampally for developing houses/flats for providing houses to the needy people in an affordable price on no profit no loss basis. After allotment, the Housing Board has made a layout with due approval from the competent authorities. The Housing Board also obtained building permission for construction of apartments of various sizes. While fixing the costs of the flats, the Housing Board collected the total land cost of the whole Baghlingampally Venture from the allottees of the flats. Thereafter, the Baghlingampally Venture was developed in Phase wise manner. The petitioners’ Association Block is situated at Phase-II of the venture. As per the sizes and costs of the flats, they were earmarked as LIG, MIG and HIG. The petitioners Association Block is in the category of HIG. While developing the venture, the Housing Board left certain open spaces for parks and other amenities as well as land for laying roads and developed the roads. Thereafter, the flats were allotted to the public and the Housing Bboard handed over the open spaces and laid roads to the GHMC for their development and maintenance. The GHMC assessed the individual flats and collected the house tax from each flat owner all these years.

4. The petitioner Nos.1 to 13 are individual flat owners of Block No.16, HIG-II Baghlingampally, Hyderabad, which consists of 16 flats and also the members of the 14th petitioner Association. It is submitted that the petitioner Association was added as a party in abundant caution to represent the other flat owners in this writ petition. The petitioners have furnished their details of the registered sale deeds purchased on different dates. The petitioners further submit that having purchased the said flats, they are entitled to utilize the public road existing towards North and West side of their Block and in the event of any hindrance to such usage, the petitioners are entitled to approach respondent Nos.1 to 4, who are bound to redress their grievance. The main grievance of the pe