Daspalla controversy: Story of a legal battle for an expensive land parcel

The Opposition has accused the YSRCP government in Andhra Pradesh of weakening the case in the court and failing to protect the land from real estate sharks.
Daspalla hills
Daspalla hills
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The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday, January 4 directed the Visakhapatnam District Collector to take action to remove the Daspalla lands from 22A category of the Indian Registration Act and transfer them to Rani Kamaladevi in the land dispute case. The HC stated that Rani Kamaladevi is the rightful owner of the Daspalla lands in Waltair, as per an earlier verdict which was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Land is a state subject under Indian Constitution and under the Indian Registration Act of 1908 prohibited properties are regulated under Section 22 A. The governments recognise waqf, barren, endowment, and poramboke lands as prohibited properties which cannot be sold or bought. In some circumstances the land can be leased out for public purposes. Waltair is a posh layout close to the beach and the area got the name during the British period. The place was called Valteru and gradually became Waltair in official records.

The subject of Daspalla land has been in the news for a while, and the Opposition has accused the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress government of failing to protect it on purpose and allowing some of its leaders to take part in a real estate fraud.

What are Daspalla lands?

Narayanagajapati Raja of Vairicharla, of the royal Daspalla family, owned lands in the area which he wrote in his will to his daughter Rani Kamaladevi in 1938. After the Estate Abolition Act came into force in 1952 the government acquired lands under urban land ceiling act. A dispute arose and during the course of settlement proceedings in 1958, Assistant Settlement Officer, Anakapalli, granted Ground Rent Patta to her in 1958. 

As per records, land parcels under Visakhapatnam town survey numbers 1196, 1197, 1027, 1028 have a total of 60 acres of land, of which 40 acres have been acquired by Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development Authority(VMRDA), Navy and Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC). Of the remaining 20 acres, five acres have been allocated for various purposes. The remaining 15 acres are in dispute and its current market value of this land is estimated to be around Rs 3,000 crore, according to reports . 

In 1981 the Tahsildar appealed that the Ground Rent Patta was cancelled, following a revision petition by revenue officers. In 2001, the land parcels were again included under 22A (GO 657) prohibiting its owner to sell, transfer or put it up for mortgage financing. Kamaladevi then appealed the survey department's decision in the high court. The state government contested the high court’s decision before the Supreme Court, and a legal battle lasted until 2014. The Supreme court too ruled in Kamala Devi’s favour. The government then moved a curative petition but the court again ruled in Kamala Devi’s favour. The Telugu Desam Party government, refusing to back down, reclassified these lands as 22A in a notification that was published in 2015. 

The controversy

The government has primarily been accused of failing to safeguard land for public use and purposefully weakening court cases. 

Rani Kamaladevi entered into an agreement with Assure Estates Developers LLP which sought a loan from Avyaan realtors, owned by YSRCP Rajya Sabha member Vijaya Sai Reddy’s daughter and son-in-law are directors, for developing the land. It is alleged that agreements were made to construct buildings in the disputed area even as the land parcels were in the prohibitory list. 

The Opposition has alleged that after Visakhapatnam was announced as the administrative capital the company which had access to confidential information benefited from it and around  60 individuals purchased Daspalla lands. The controversy began after a memo issued by the Jagan government on September 27 removing the Daspalla lands from the prohibited list and returning them to the Daspalla royal family. Social activists and opposition parties are calling for a CBI investigation into the entire incident.

In October, last year Minister Vijayasai Reddy held a press conference after a series of articles in local newspapers named him in the land deals. The editors of the papers are allegedly close associates of the Opposition Telugu Desam Party. He announced that he was ready to face investigation and blamed the TDP for filing a curative petition after stipulated time and asserted that the Supreme court order will benefit the land owners and several families. 

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