Hyderabad: Telangana High Court has allowed Hyderabad Airport Metro Limited (HAML) to resume work on acquiring land for the Metro Rail Phase-II project, vacating an earlier order that had put the process on hold.Justice NV Shravan Kumar passed the interim order while hearing a petition filed by govt seeking to vacate the stay it had granted in January 2025.The court clarified that issues relating to the legality and procedural compliance of the acquisition proceedings would be examined at the final hearing of the writ petition, but the acquisition process itself may continue in the meantime, strictly in accordance with law.The dispute arose over land acquisition for Metro Phase-II, running from MGBS to Chandrayangutta through the Old City. Eight petitioners, mostly shop and property owners in the area, had approached the court arguing that the acquisition unfairly targeted their side of the road.The petitioners alleged that govt was acquiring far more land from the left hand side than the right hand side, instead of acquiring equally from both sides of the road as it widened from 60 feet to 100 feet.“The compensation offered, as low as ₹26,000 to ₹81,000 per square yard, was far below the real market value of ₹3-4 lakh per square yard in the area. Moreover, our formal objections against the process were not properly considered before the govt pushed ahead with the acquisition process,” alleged the petitioners.HAML countered that the alignment was based on the officially approved city master plan, that a survey using drone and satellite technology had been carried out, and that uneven construction on both sides of the road made a perfectly equal split impossible without creating a zig-zag alignment.“Compensation had been fixed through negotiations and over 300 of the 357 affected property owners had already accepted awards and handed over possession,” they argued.The court held that highway and metro alignment decisions involve technical and engineering expertise, that courts are not equipped to second-guess, and that blocking the project would harm the larger public interest by delaying an important transport link for the city, and adjourned the matter for further hearing.
