The Supreme Court has dismissed appeals by private claimants seeking ownership of about 550 acres of land in Miyapur, Hyderabad, ending a dispute that had been pending before the court for 23 years and affirming that the land belongs to the Telangana government.

A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Satish Chandra Sharma dismissed the appeals, including Civil Appeal No. 10699 of 2013, on Thursday, Telugu360 reported. The dispute concerns Survey Nos. 100 and 101 of Miyapur village in Serilingampally mandal, Rangareddy district — 277 acres and 5 guntas, and 273 acres and 34 guntas respectively, about 551 acres in all, according to government revenue records cited in the reporting.

The court held that neither a 1929 firman issued by the Nizam nor later revenue entries, historical documents, an alleged auction or a will established valid title, Hyderabad Mail reported. The bench clarified that a jagir was a grant of rights over land revenue and did not confer ownership of the land itself, and that whatever limited rights existed were extinguished under the AP (Telangana Area) (Abolition of Jagirs) Regulation, which came into force on August 15, 1949.

The court found that revenue entries from the 1950s naming Rafi-un-nisa Begum as pattadar were “bogus and not genuine”, and observed that she herself did not have valid title and therefore could not have transferred ownership to the appellants, Hyderabad Mail reported.

550 acresMiyapur land held to belong to Telangana government
23 yearsDispute pending before the Supreme Court
1997 / 2003Special Court, then Andhra Pradesh High Court, ruled for the state

In 1997, the Special Court for Land Grabbing Cases ruled that the land belonged to the state, and the then Andhra Pradesh High Court upheld that decision in 2003. The private claimants then moved the Supreme Court, which has now dismissed their appeals, leaving the earlier judgments in favour of the state undisturbed.

Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, addressing a press conference in Delhi on Friday, described the ruling as a historic judgment and thanked the court, Nation Press and India Today reported. The state government values the Miyapur parcels at around ₹50,000 crore; Hyderabad Mail cited sources putting the value at around ₹25,000 crore. Reddy said the government was considering selling the land and using the proceeds for irrigation, education and healthcare, with the proposal to go before the state Cabinet, and that a Cabinet sub-committee on resource mobilisation would examine it.

Reddy also alleged that former chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, his family members and other BRS leaders had attempted to grab government land in Hyderabad and elsewhere in Telangana, and claimed his government had protected land worth about ₹1.5 lakh crore through legal battles. These are the Chief Minister's political allegations, reported by India Today; they are not findings of the Supreme Court in the Miyapur judgment, and no BRS response was included in the reports cited here.

The Chief Minister's Office said a special initiative by Reddy led to the resolution of the Miyapur case and that he had directed officials to expedite legal proceedings to protect valuable government land, Hyderabad Mail reported. Senior advocate Vaidyanathan represented the Telangana government, which relied on historical revenue documents including the Sethwar and classification registers, Telugu360 reported.