Hyderabad: TPCC spokesperson Syed Nizamuddin on Saturday challenged BRS leaders KT Rama Rao and T Harish Rao to identify private properties allegedly wrongly listed under Section 22-A. He said they should provide survey-wise details so genuine claims could be verified and erroneous entries corrected.
Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan, Nizamuddin accused the BRS of misleading people about the prohibited properties list. He said the party was portraying the entire extent of more than one crore acres as private land.
Hyderabad DCC President Syed Khalid Saifullah, TPCC spokesperson Ram Shetty Narender and Bahadurpura Assembly Incharge Rajesh Kumar Pulipati were also present.
Nizamuddin asked the Opposition leaders to provide the district, village, survey number, extent and ownership details of disputed properties. “Do not bring hashtags. Bring survey numbers,” he said. He added that genuine owners could approach the government with supporting documents.
He said Section 22-A had been in force since 2007 and was not introduced by the Revanth Reddy government. He questioned why the BRS continued with the system during its 10 years in power if it considered the restrictions improper.
According to Nizamuddin, about 1.02 crore acres were already covered by prohibited property records when Congress assumed office in December 2023. He said most of the land fell into categories requiring protection.
These included State and Central government land, forest land, assigned or Lavani land, shikam land, Waqf properties and endowment land. In contrast, he said about four lakh acres constituted private land.
Nizamuddin said the private parcels included properties affected by court cases, government claims and disputes between private parties. Therefore, describing the entire prohibited extent as farmers’ or privately owned land was misleading, he said.
He acknowledged errors in the records. In some cases, entire survey numbers had been restricted even when only part of the land was affected. Such entries had created difficulties for genuine property owners, he said.
Section 22-A corrections under way
Nizamuddin said the government had acknowledged these errors and established a mechanism to correct them. It had also constituted a high-level committee to examine complaints from affected property owners.
He said 47,440 acres identified as wrongly entered had been removed from the prohibited category by August 2026. He argued that this reduction showed the government was correcting records rather than adding private land.
Nizamuddin questioned why the previous BRS government had not prepared a clean, village-wise list during its decade in office. He said it had access to the Dharani portal and district-level land records but had not corrected disputed entries.
He also alleged irregularities under Dharani, including changes in land records without proper sale or gift deeds. Some disputed properties continued to remain under Section 22-A, he said.
Nizamuddin maintained that restrictions on disputed properties prevented further transactions until courts or authorities resolved ownership claims. Removing restrictions prematurely could allow more transactions and prolong litigation for genuine owners, he said.
He also defended restrictions on assigned land provided to landless poor families. Such land should not be treated as real-estate stock, he said. Any illegal sale or occupation of assigned or Lavani land should be investigated regardless of who was involved.
The TPCC spokesperson urged affected owners not to resort to distress sales. He also advised them against paying intermediaries who promised to secure corrections.
Instead, owners should submit applications and supporting documents to the authorities for verification, he said. Properties wrongly included in the prohibited list would be removed after genuine ownership was established.
Nizamuddin asked KTR and Harish Rao to follow the same process for cases brought to their attention. He said the government would examine properties shown to be genuinely private.
However, he said the BRS should disclose the actual classification of government, assigned, forest, Waqf or endowment land. Such properties should not simply be described as “people’s land”, he added.
Nizamuddin said official records and individual survey numbers should determine the dispute rather than political claims. “Let records decide, not rumours,” he said.