The Telangana High Court on Tuesday directed the State government not to insist on people submitting Aadhaar information while uploading details about immovable property in the recently launched Dharani portal, an integrated land record management system.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy was hearing PIL filed by advocate Gopal Sharma seeking an order from the court to declare the government’s move to seek details such as Aadhaar and caste while uploading the property details, as unconstitutional and alleged it was a threat to privacy.
The petitioner sought the court to declare some of the provisions of the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act 2020, the Telangana Municipalities Act 2019, the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act 2018 and the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act 1955 are in violation of the constitution.
The bench opined that security of Aadhaar details after being collected was not backed by any law. The court also directed the state government to file an affidavit on the issue in two weeks.
Advocate General BS Prasad informed the court that the objective seeking Aadhaar details for agricultural land was to ensure that genuine landowners would get the benefits of Rythu Bandhu Scheme of the government and other social welfare schemes.
He also pointed out that the Dharani portal for registration of non-agricultural property would provide an easy way to all transfers of property without any hassles.
Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao recently launched Dharaniportal which has records pertaining to about 1.46 crore acres of land and people can access their land records any time with just a click away.
While launching the portal, KCR said the Government will very soon undertake a survey to allot geographical coordinates-longitudes and latitudes to lands in order to make them tamper-proof.
