Telangana HC quashes land allotment to foundation headed by BRS MP

Hyderabad, June 5 : The Telangana High Court on Monday quashed allotment of 15 acres of government land in Hyderabad to a foundation headed by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MP and Hetero Group Chairman B. Partha Saradhi Reddy.

A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan set aside the Government Order (GO) issued in 2018 to allot the prime land in Khanamet near Gachibowli to Sai Sindhu Foundation Trust for building a cancer hospital.

The court pronounced its order on a PIL filed by Dr Urmila Pingle, a medical anthropologist and human rights activist, Suresh Kumar and others.

Under the GO 59 dated March 22, 2018, the land was allotted to the Foundation for a nominal lease of Rs 1.47 lakh per year for a period of 33 years for the construction of a hospital to treat cancer and other diseases.

The petitioners had challenged the allotment of the prime land worth over Rs 500 crore for a paltry lease amount. They also argued that the chairman of the Sai Sindhu Foundation is being charged with money laundering under the PMLA. They submitted to the court that according to the District Collector's report, the market value of the land is Rs 75,000 per sq yard and its total value is over Rs 500 crore while the annual lease amount is Rs 50 crore.

The government, however, had defended the land allotment. Advocate General B.S. Prasad had told the court that the economic component could not be observed in this instance as fatalities due to cancer are now second-most in the country, only behind heart attacks. He said that the chairperson of the Sai Sindhu Foundation is the CEO of Hetero Group.

Partha Saradhi Reddy is the founder and head of Hetero Drugs, a Hyderabad-based generic pharmaceutical company.

Last year, the BRS named him as its candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections and he was elected unopposed to the Upper House of Parliament.