Hyderabad: The Telangana high court has held that a registered sale deed cannot be cancelled unilaterally and set aside a cancellation deed executed by registration authorities, while at the same time upholding the rejection of a land regularisation application relating to the disputed property.Justice Laxmi Narayana Alishetty was hearing two connected writ petitions filed by a 60-year-old woman, Kanneti Kamalamma, from Kukatpally claiming ownership over a 287-square-yard plot at Guttalabegumpet in Serilingampally. While allowing the challenge to the cancellation of deed, the court clarified that the authorities are free to take appropriate steps to cancel the original sale deed in accordance with law.The court also directed the district collector to include the land in the prohibitory register under Section 22-A of the Registration Act to prevent further transactions. The petitioner challenged the rejection of her application under the Layout Regularisation Scheme (LRS) and also questioned the subsequent cancellation of her registered sale deed by the authorities.The petitioner contended that the draft layout relied upon by the authorities was withdrawn in 1996 and therefore could not be used to reject her LRS application. “GHMC authorities had no power to execute a registered cancellation deed,” claimed Kamalamma.GHMC, however, maintained that the land formed part of a 30-foot road shown in the layout and that the roads and open spaces were already gifted to the municipality through a registered gift deed. “This property was meant for public use and could not be regularised,” maintained GHMC.Agreeing with the authorities on the issue of regularisation, the court observed that the land was shown as a road in the layout. It held that the subsequent withdrawal of the draft layout would not alter the nature of the land and found no reason to interfere with the rejection of the LRS application.Further, on the issue of cancellation of the sale deed, the court referred to the Telangana Registration Rules and earlier judicial precedents and observed that unilateral cancellation of a previously registered conveyance is not permissible after the relevant statutory amendments.Since the sale deed was cancelled in 2018 without compliance with these requirements, the court declared the cancellation deed invalid and unsustainable in law and set it aside.
