Telangana Govt constitutes high-level committee to resolve controversy over Section 22A lands

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Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy speaking on the issues pertaining to Section 22A of Registration Act, during the monsoon session of Legilsative Assembly in Hyderabad on Wednesday (September 16, 2026) | Photo Credit: BY ARRANGEMENT

The Telangana Government has decided to put an end to the raging controversy over inclusion of vast stretches of private lands in the Section 22A of the Registration Act.

Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has announced constitution of a high-level official committee to study the issue in-depth and suggest remedial measures so that not a single genuine land owner is adversely affected. The high power committee comprising Law Secretary, Chief Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA), Commissioner of Registration and Stamps and other senior officials, has been given a 30 day deadline to study the issue and submit its recommendations.

The Chief Minister attributed the absence of sub division of lands by successive governments that resulted in piling up of the number of lands placed under Section 22A and said that his government is firm on evolving a mechanism in this direction.

In a marathon speech in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday (September 16, 2026) in response to the charges made by the Opposition members against inclusion of lands in Part–B, he said the Congress Government had in fact brought down the number from 21.93 lakh acres to around 17 lakh acres ever since it started the exercise to cleanse the revenue records that were corrupted by the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government. Several anomalies in the land record updation programme, launched by the previous government, paved the way for enlarging the list of prohibited lands.

The present government initiated the exercise to identify genuine lands and those under encroachments as the High Court took a serious view of huge pendency of Part-B lands. It was accordingly revealed that entries into the prohibited lands list was partly due to clerical errors and partly because of technical issues.

“Lands in the prohibited list were not deleted despite government selling the lands to different agencies and subsequent transactions that took place,” he said.

Tracing the origin of Section 22A to the 1990s, he said the then Congress regime under Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy enacted a legislation in 2007 for ensuring that lands owned by the government, Endowments, Wakf, Forest and others were protected from encroachments by placing them in the prohibited list. “These lands measuring around 98 lakh acres should be kept in the prohibited list. Can we remove them from the list so that they become vulnerable to encroachments?” he asked daring the BRS to clarify its stand on the issue.

The lists of these lands were however not circulated at the sub registrar level resulting in preparation of sale deeds pertaining to them in the due course. “Though the list of Part-B lands are circulated to the Sub Registrar Offices (SRO), their location in respective survey numbers was not communicated to the sub registrars thereby complicating the situation,” he said.

An extent of 7.91 lakh private lands were in the Part-B during the BRS regime and this was brought down to 3.73 lakh acres at present. Though this was a legacy issue, the main Opposition BRS tried to pass the blame on to the government as “They (the BRS leaders) are afraid that misappropriation of land during their tenure will come out if an inquiry is ordered,” Mr. Reddy said.

The government had therefore decided to put in place an effective mechanism so that registrations were not stopped. “A system will be put in place within seven days,” he said.

The Chief Minister launched a trenchant attack on the previous government for its decision to introduce Dharani portal that made thousands suffer. “Data of 2.5 crore acres along with the information about the land owners has landed in the hands of vested interests through Dharani. These vested interests are based out of tax havens like Cayman Islands and British Virginia Islands,” he alleged.

The portal had helped regularise lands in the name of those close to powers that be in the BRS Government. “The scale of irregularities can be gauged from the fact that the project which started off with an estimated ₹110 crore has subsequently been valued at ₹1,350 crore,” he said. In the process, the previous government had done away with the Land Grabbing Act that was a deterrent for those trying to encroach into government lands. The Dharani portal saw the removal of important columns like the ‘possession’ and ‘enjoyment’ columns to ensure that land could be misappropriated.

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