IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY SECOND DAY OF OCTOBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MS JUSTICE G.ROHINI WRIT PETITION NO : 5520 of 2007 Between: M.Lakshmi Devi, w/o M.Murari, Paipalli Village, Puttaparthi mandal, Anantapur District. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The Divisional Engineer, Housing, Hindupur, Anantapur District. C.T. is amended as per court order dt. 3-4-2007 in WPMP 7362 of 2007 2 The Mandal Revenue Officer, Puttaparthy Mandal, Anantapur District. 3 The Joint Collector, Anantapur, Anantapur District. .....RESPONDENT(S) Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the Aﬃdavit ﬁled herein the High Court will be pleased to issue appropriate writ, order or direction, more particularly one in the nature of writ of mandamus declaring the inaction of the 1st respondent in proceeding with the construction of houses in spite of the recommendation of the 2nd respondent in R.C.No.16/2006 dated 5- 3-2007 not to proceed with the construction of the houses in view of the irregularities occurred in the preparation of the list of beneﬁciaries as found by the 2nd respondent, as arbitrary, illegal and without jurisdiction and to pass such other order or orders as this Hon'ble Court may deem ﬁt and proper in the circumstances of the case. Counsel for the Petitioner : MR. CHILAMKURI HANUMANTHA RAYUDU Counsel for the Respondents : GP FOR HOUSING The Court made the following : THE HON’BLE MS JUSTICE G.ROHINI W.P.No.5520 of 2007 ORAL ORDER The petitioner herein is the Sarpanch of Paipalli Gram panchayat, Puttaparthi Mandal, Anantapur district. This writ petition is ﬁled seeking a declaration that the action of the 1st respondent-District Manager, Housing, Anantapur in proceeding with the construction of houses under “Indiramma Programme Housing Scheme” at Paipalli Village in spite of the fact that there are various irregularities in the preparation of list of beneficiaries, is arbitrary and illegal. The petitioner states that being the Sarpanch of the village, she prepared the list of eligible persons for grant of house site pattas under “Indiramma Programme Housing Scheme” and submitted the same to the 2nd respondent- Mandal Revenue Oﬃcer, Puttaparthy. However, the 2 nd respondent instead of forwarding the said list to the 1st respondent-District Manager, Housing, Anantapur deleted many eligible persons and included the names of other persons at the instance of the local political leaders. When the petitioner raised objection alleging that the persons so included in the list of beneﬁciaries were ineligible for allotment of house sites, the revenue Oﬃcials conducted a thorough enquiry and found large scale irregularities in the preparation of list of beneﬁciaries. However, since no steps were taken to delete the ineligible persons from the list of beneﬁciaries, the petitioner approached the 3rd respondent- Joint Collector, Anantapur to conduct a detailed enquiry and take necessary steps to see that ineligible members are deleted from the list of beneﬁciaries. Alleging that the 3rd respondent failed to respond and in the meanwhile the 1st respondent was proceeding with the construction of houses, the present writ petition is filed. A counter-aﬃdavit has been ﬁled by the Tahasildar, Puttaparthy stating that the Deputy Executive Engineer, Housing by letter dated.30-04-2007 reported that he had not initiated any action for construction of houses since it was found that some of the eligible beneﬁciaries were not included in the sanctioned housing list under the scheme. However, the alleged irregularities in preparation of list of beneﬁciaries has been denied. Subsequently in compliance with the order of this Court dated.14-12-2007 directing the District Collector to conduct an enquiry into the allegations made by the writ petitioner with regard to the eligibility of beneﬁciaries and ﬁle a comprehensive report, the District Collector, Anantapur ﬁled a counter-aﬃdavit dated. 31-01-2008 stating that steps are being taken to identify the eligible beneﬁciaries afresh and if any eligible beneﬁciaries are found, their cases will be considered following the procedure. I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioner as well as the learned Government Pleader for Revenue appearing for the respondents. As could be seen from the counter-aﬃdavit ﬁled by the District Collector, the Revenue Divisional Oﬃcer, Penukonda, personally visited the village on 10.1.2008 and after conducting a detailed enquiry submitted a report on 13-01-2008 stating that 50 persons are found ineligible for sanction of houses as some are having government pucca houses and some are having government sites in the village and some persons are residing in other places. The said report is based on door to door enquiry conducted by the RDO in the village in the presence of the villagers as well as the writ petitioner. The District Collector in his counter-aﬃdavit further stated that the said persons who were found to be ineligible, were not sanctioned houses and steps are being taken to identify the eligible beneficiaries afresh. Since a detailed enquiry was conducted by the District Collector in compliance with the order of this Court dated. 14-12-2007 and ineligible persons were deleted from the list of beneﬁciaries, the writ petition is disposed of with a direction to the District Collector, Anantapur to take necessary steps for allotment of houses/house sites under the scheme to all the eligible beneficiaries following due process of law. No order as to costs. _______________ G. ROHINI, J. Dt. 22.10.2008 *T SNR