KULLI SRINIVASA RAO Vs. VAODAMA GRAM PANCHAYAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition is filed questioning the action of the first respondent-Gram Panchayat in constructing a bus shelter on the Western side of the main road near the hotel being run by the petitioner.

(2.) THE case of the petitioner is that he, an unemployed graduate, purchased ac. 0. 40 cents of land abutting Randb road on the Western side under a register sale deed by mortgaging his agricultural land and started a small hotel in the year 2001 and is eking out his livelihood from the income of the hotel. Though there is a bus shelter abutting the Randb road on the Eastern side from 10 years, some persons having considerable political power in the village, and who did not like his starting hotel business, with an intention to cause loss to him asked the Sarpanch to construct a bus shelter opposite to the hotel being run by him and so the bus shelter is being constructed there, which would block his ingress and egress to the hotel, and thereby causing loss to his business completely and thus his only source of livelihood would be lost.

(3.) ON behalf of the first respondent-the Sarpanch of the Gram Panchayat filed his counter affidavit inter alia stating that at the request of the public of the Vaidana village and surrounding villages, the local M. P. agreed to release rs. 1,00,000/- from the MP lads for construction of bus shelter at Vaidana bus stage on the Western side of Medarametla to Narketpalli Highway, whereupon the panchayat authorities decided to construct a bus shelter and obtained necessary permission from higher authorities. The bus shelter on the Eastern side of the randb road is at a distance of 200 yards North-East of the petitioner's site and is useful only to the persons going towards Medarametla side. As there is no bus shelter for the public going towards Narketpalli side, the new bus shelter was proposed to be constructed. The averment that the persons having considerable political power in the village did not take kindly to the petitioner starting of the hotel business is not true, similarly the averment that the proposed bus shelter would block the ingress and egress of the petitioner's site and would lead to his closing of the business is not true. Along with his counter affidavit he filed a sketch showing the typography of the roads and the existing bus shelter and the proposed bus shelter.