Hyderabad: Two decades after losing her home and farmland to the Sriram Sagar Project — her only source of livelihood — an elderly farmer has finally secured justice, with the Telangana high court directing the state to allot her alternate land and compensate her for years of loss and hardship.Taking serious note of the state’s prolonged apathy, Justice Anil Kumar Jukanti ordered the govt to not only hand over physical possession of alternate land with complete documentation, but also pay Rs 10 lakh towards the farm income she lost over 20 years, along with Rs 25,000 towards legal costs. The court underscored that access to rehabilitation is not merely an administrative process, but a constitutional and human right. The petitioner, Danthakala Chinnakka Chinnamma, now in her 70s and residing in Nizamabad district, had lost her home and two acres of agricultural land in Kustapur village of Mallapur mandal, then in Karimnagar district, when it was submerged in 2006. Though authorities issued her a patta for alternate land in a neighbouring village, she was never given physical possession. What followed was years of relentless effort — moving from office to office — only to face bureaucratic delays and repeated assurances of ‘surplus land’ that never materialised. With no resolution in sight, she approached the high court in 2016. Before the court, authorities maintained that steps were being taken under the rehabilitation and resettlement scheme, but said the process remained ‘pending for want of reply’ from internal departments. From pillar to postRejecting this explanation, the court found the state’s inaction to be self-serving and devoid of credibility, and came down strongly on the govt for “forcing a poor, illiterate villager to run from pillar to post after losing her land for a public cause.”Emphasising that property rights are protected under Article 300A and recognised as a fundamental human right, the judge observed that making the petitioner wait for 20 years for a mandatory rehabilitation benefit was ‘unconstitutional’ and amounted to a complete abdication of responsibility. The court also noted the silent suffering endured by the petitioner, observing that she must have faced prolonged mental agony, pain and trauma while making repeated but futile representations for her rightful land. Shocking delayCalling the delay shocking, the judge said the state’s failure to allot alternate land despite issuing a patta in 2006 “shocks the conscience of this court” and reiterated that citizens cannot be deprived of their livelihood. Terming it a fit case to invoke its extraordinary jurisdiction, the high court directed the govt to pay the compensation within 16 weeks. It also ordered that the petitioner be given physical possession of cultivable alternate land — duly demarcated, with a pattadar passbook and title deed — within four months from receipt of the order.
