AMARAVATI: The Andhra Pradesh High Court rapped Mangalagiri Tahsildar for a two- year delay in filing of an appeal in a land dispute case and imposed a penalty of Rs 25,000. It directed the Government to recover the amount from the related authorities and deposit it in the State Legal Services Authority within four weeks. Justice Battu Devanand delivered the verdict on Wednesday.

Dismissing the reasons stated by the petitioner that delay was due to officials being busy inthe land pooling scheme for Amaravati, the Judge said delay in filing the appeal clearly shows lack of sincerity on part of the officials. The High Court also reprimanded the officials of the High Court Registry (Judicial) and said that in the petition Tahsildar had stated that there was a delay of 669 days in the filing of the appeal but in fact, it was actually 1,016 days. The High Court directed the Registrar General to instruct Judicial Department officials to be more careful in scrutinizing and processing cases.

The case was pertained to seven acres of land in Mangalagiri,which belonged to Damarla Nancharamma, a Padmashali woman who donated the land to the Padmashali Sangham . The land was used for constructing a tank, but three 3 acres were encroached. The Sangham wanted to fence the remaining four acres land, but were served notices by the revenue officials stating that no construction should be taken up on the land, as it belonged to the government.

Contesting the claim of the revenue officials, thePadmashali Sangham filed a petition with Mangalagiri Junior Civil Judge Court in 2012 and the verdict came in favour of the revenue department in 2014. The Sangham appealed in the senior civil judge court challenging the verdict of lower court, and the verdict of the lower court was reversed in favour of the Sangham in August 2015.

In September 2018, Mangalagiri Tahsildar went for second appeal challenging the senior civil judge court's verdict. He also filed a supplementary petition for waiving the delay of 699 days in filing the appeal.

The High Court struck down the supplementary petition filed by the Tahsildar seeking condonation of delay in filing the appeal. The High Court also dismissed the main case filed by the Tahsildar challenging the verdict of the lower court.