Hyderabad, Aug. 24 -- The Telangana High Court set aside land acquired for a resettlement zone under the Mid Manair Reservoir Project in Rajanna Sircilla district, holding that having a genuine public purpose does not by itself justify denying landowners their legal right to object before acquisition.

Justice Vakiti Ramakrishna Reddy held that under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, landowners are ordinarily entitled to an inquiry where they can raise objections before their land is formally acquired. The government can skip this step only in genuinely urgent cases, by separately invoking a specific "urgency" provision. Merely citing a public purpose is not enough to justify doing so, the court said.

The case was filed by Kusa Lachi Reddy...