The Hyderabad High Court today disapproved of the Telangana government's argument that Irrum Manzil was not a heritage structure, and that hence the government did not need permisssion to demolish it to build a new Assembly building in its place.
Hearing the petitions against the proposed demolition of the "heritage structure", ordered by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, the court said that everybody must follow the rules and nobody was exempted from the laws of the land.
The court said that the argument of the Additional Advocate General of the State government that there was no heritage list any more as regulation 13 of the HUDA zoning regulations was repealed in 2015 did not hold, as the repealing did not affect the list as per the General Clauses Act.
The court is dealing with a bunch of petitions, some on behalf of the Nizam family heirs, against KCR's plan to demolish the heritage structure. Some of the petitioners also argued that building a new Assembly building complex was a colossal waste of public money, a popular refrain.
The court gave the Telangana government until July 22 to respond to the petitions.
filed in:Telangana, High Court, Telangana High Court, Courts, Legal, Demolition, KCR, Assembly, Telangana Assembly