Hyderabad: The Telangana high court on Monday ordered that status quo be maintained over disputed land linked to the Full Tank Level (FTL) area of Ameenpur lake — also known as Pedda Cheruvu — in Ameenpur village, Sangareddy district. The court suspended a July 2026 govt order issued for the lake’s rejuvenation to that extent, pending further hearing.Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy passed the directions while dealing with a batch of 83 petitions challenging the govt order. The judge permitted authorities to continue lake restoration work strictly within the originally notified area of 93 acres and 15 guntas, while directing the petitioners not to undertake any further construction or development activities on the disputed land.The judge also impleaded the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority as a suo motu party to the petitions and adjourned the matter to Oct 5 for further hearing.Additional advocate general Mohd Imran Khan was granted liberty to mention the matter if the 2019 order of the single judge relating to the same issue is modified in the pending appeals, or if a final FTL notification is issued.Senior counsel K Srinivasa Murthy and counsel Nanduri Lohitha, appearing for the petitioners, argued that the lake’s FTL area is only 93 acres and 15 guntas, relying on the descriptive memoirs of Pedda Cheruvu maintained by the irrigation department.They cited a Sept 2019 common order in which the same court had held that the FTL area was 93 acres and 15 guntas, and not the far larger figure claimed by the state. They contended that they were similarly placed to those earlier litigants and would suffer irreparable harm if restoration work proceeded on the expanded extent.Countering the claims, Imran Khan argued that the lake’s actual spread area is 464.56 acres, relying on Google Earth and Landsat imagery. He submitted that the Memoirs reflect only tank-bed (shikam) land, not the full FTL area, and noted that while the 2019 order is under challenge in pending writ appeals, no interim stay has been granted. He requested two days to produce further documentation.Noting that the FTL issue had already been adjudicated in the 2019 order, the court held that the petitioners’ interests would be jeopardised without interim protection and issued the interim directions.
