22A lands row: Harish Rao seeks sitting judge probe, white paper
BRS deputy floor leader T Harish Rao on Tuesday demanded an inquiry by a sitting High Court judge into the Section 22A prohibited lands list and sought the removal of Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy from the Telangana cabinet.
Speaking to families affected by the 22A classification at M.J. Gardens in Shapur Nagar, Quthbullapur, Harish Rao said the Congress government had created enormous confusion by placing genuine private properties, residential colonies and agricultural lands in the prohibited list.
He questioned the Revenue Minister's claim that 98 per cent of the properties had already been removed from the list. "If 98 per cent of the properties have been removed, why are hundreds of affected people still coming to us with their grievances? The Government made the mistake. Why should ordinary people now run around government offices and submit applications to correct it?" Harish Rao asked.
Harish Rao said properties in decades-old colonies such as Padmarao Nagar Phase-I and Springfield, besides areas such as Nizampet, were reportedly being affected by the restrictions. He said agricultural lands across the state were being affected and that even government properties and public establishments had appeared in the list.
He alleged that serious complaints were emerging about people being forced to approach intermediaries and pay money to get their properties cleared from the list. "The Government must find out who included these properties in the 22A list, who gave the instructions and who is removing them now. The entire process must be investigated," he said.
Calling the controversy a commission racket, Harish Rao described the Chief Minister and the Revenue Minister as its "A-1 and A-2" and accused them of seeking a 50:50 share in commissions, media reported.
He questioned the inclusion of the Ameenpur police station and even the Chief Minister's residence in the 22A list. "The Chief Minister handed over government land worth hundreds of crores to his brother, while private properties are being placed under 22A," he said. He also asked why Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had failed to act despite concerns reportedly raised earlier about large-scale inclusion of lands, including in Yadadri district.
Harish Rao demanded an immediate inquiry by a sitting High Court judge and a white paper giving complete details of properties added to and removed from the list, including survey numbers, dates, reasons and authorities responsible.
He said the government should not force genuine property owners to submit applications and visit MRO, RDO and Collector offices repeatedly, and that wrongly listed properties should be removed automatically. He demanded that Ponguleti be immediately removed from the cabinet and that responsibility be fixed after an independent investigation.
Harish Rao said the BRS would take up the issue strongly in the Assembly from September 7. "People should not lose their properties or be forced to sell them at distress prices because of wrong entries in government records. The BRS will stand with every genuine property owner and fight until justice is delivered," he said.
Section 22A of the Registration Act allows the government to maintain a list of properties that cannot be registered. If a property is on the list, the sub-registrar must refuse registration even if the ownership papers are genuine.
Revenue Minister Ponguleti admitted on August 17 that the lists that reached sub-registrars were out of date. Old lists filed in court in December were passed on without correction, he said, and collectors kept using old copies. Since land is identified by survey numbers, one survey number covering hundreds of acres could freeze an entire colony over a single dispute.
Officials' updated list from October 2025 ran past 1 crore acres, while news reports in August put the figure at 90 lakh to 93 lakh acres. Harish Rao said it was about 40 lakh acres. Telangana has about 2.5 crore acres in all.
Ponguleti says the trouble sits mainly in four districts around Hyderabad. Medchal-Malkajgiri alone has 511 complaints pending out of roughly 750, and about 6,000 cases are before the Telangana High Court.
Harish Rao claimed that land already exempted by earlier government orders, about 7,500 plots in Rangareddy and over 6,000 in Medchal, was swept into the list.
On August 5, Ponguleti said the government had not deliberately added a single cent of land. On August 13, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy asked people not to panic. After a review on August 18, he ordered that anyone who had already booked a registration slot be checked within two days and registered at once if the land was private.
Ponguleti has repeatedly pointed to Jubilee Hills Survey No 403, where only two of 1,280 acres are actually restricted. He said an upload error briefly flagged the entire survey number, including the Chief Minister's own house, before it was fixed.
The BRS has also set up a legal aid cell with 10 lawyers at Telangana Bhavan to help affected owners and has demanded a CID inquiry into what it describes as a 22A scam.
The Assembly meets on September 7, and both the BRS and the BJP have promised to raise the issue. The government has set up a toll-free number, 1800 599 4788, for affected owners, with the District Collector having the final say on disputes. Officials have warned against middlemen who offer to get names cleared for a fee.
