Telangana HC rejects Salar Jung estate heirs’ claim over Ranga Reddy land

The Supreme Court had held earlier that documents, including sale deeds, did not prove that the land was self-acquired property of Salar Jung III.

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has dismissed a petition seeking to pull out a piece of land in Ranga Reddy district from a proposed reserved forest, ruling that the Supreme Court had already settled the matter against the claimants last December.

The petitioners had claimed ownership over land in Sahebnagar Kalan village, Hayathnagar mandal, tracing their rights to the estate of Nawab Salar Jung III, who served as Prime Minister of Hyderabad under Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan, through a partition suit decided way back in 1958.

The claimants contended that the land was part of private holdings personally acquired by Salar Jung III, had been released from Jagir administration, and was therefore never government property. They challenged a 2005 memo by the District Collector refusing to exclude the land from the reserved forest proposal.

Government pushes back

The Forest Department and the District Collector pushed back, arguing that revenue records showed the land as Kancha Sarkari, which is essentially government wasteland or poramboke. They also pointed out that the 1958 compromise decree was a settlement between private parties and could not bind the government.

During the hearing, the state drew the court’s attention to a Supreme Court judgment of December 18 last year, which had dealt with the very same survey number in connected litigation.

In that ruling, the apex court had held that documents, including sale deeds, release orders and proceedings of the Nizam Atiyat Court, did not prove that the land was self-acquired property of Salar Jung III. The Supreme Court had rejected the ownership claim, confirmed that the land belonged to the government, and directed Telangana’s Chief Secretary to complete the process of formally declaring it a reserved forest within eight weeks.

That judgment had also set aside an earlier Telangana High Court order from January 2023 that had gone in favour of the claimants.

High Court’s ruling

A division bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice NV Shravan Kumar held that the present petition was squarely covered by the Supreme Court’s decision and that the petitioners were essentially seeking the same relief that had already been rejected by the highest court.

“The relief sought in this writ petition is devoid of merits and fails,” the bench said, dismissing the petition.

In effect, the court ruled that once the Supreme Court has conclusively decided a dispute over a specific piece of land, a fresh petition raising the same claim in the High Court cannot be entertained. The land will now proceed towards formal notification as a reserved forest.