Legal Correspondent Hyderabad

TheTelangana High Court has sentenced the managing director of ADR Estates Pvt Ltd Ch Damodar Rao and three registration officials to six months simple imprisonment for wilfully disobeying an interim order.

The division bench of Justices Kunuru Lakshman and Tukaramji passed the order, while partly allowing the contempt case filed by Chalasani Kalyani Leela. Each contemnor was fined Rs.2,000, payable within four weeks. The jail term was suspended for four weeks.

The case concerns 10 acres in survey no.140 at Bachupally in Medchal-Malkajgiri district. Leela claims the land under a registered sale deed of September 19, 2000. ADR Estates had sought deletion of that deed from the encumbrance certificate, saying earlier civil court judgments had cancelled it. A single judge directed fresh consideration of its representation on December 3, 2021, without hearing Leela. She challenged that order in WA 754 of 2022. On February 2, 2023, a division bench stayed the single judge’s order and all consequential steps. She later alleged that registrations continued despite the stay and issued contempt notices in December 2024. ADR Estates argued that the stay was not an injunction against all transactions.

The officials said they were unaware of the order or had acted within their duties, and cited Rule 58 of the Telangana Registration Rules. The bench rejected this; it held that the issue was not whether registering officers could test the validity of documents, but whether they proceeded despite knowing of a subsisting judicial order. It noted that the encumbrance certificate itself recorded the cancellation and the stay and that the respondents did not explain these entries.

A joint sub-registrar received the order on December 6, 2024, yet kept accepting documents. Another sub-registrar, later posted at Quthbullapur, did the same. The bench found the conduct deliberate and wilful. It dismissed the case against the Commissioner and Inspector-General of Registration and Stamps and the district registrar, whose roles were supervisory and who had registered no documents on the property.