Telangana High Court issues notices to government over GHMC division

The Telangana High Court on Monday issued notices to the State government in two writ petitions challenging the Telangana Municipalities (Amendment) Act-2026 and the amendments made to the Telangana Municipalities Act-2019 paving way for reconstitution of the erstwhile Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation into three separate corporations. 

A Bench comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G.M. Mohiuddin, after hearing the writ petitions, directed the government to file counter affidavits explaining their stand on the contentions raised by the petitioners. Businessmen R. Laxman and Rajamani Raju, who filed the two separate pleas, contended that the amendments brought in by the State government were unconstitutional and violative of the Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution. 

According to them, the alteration or expansion of the ‘city’ under the Municipalities Act-1955 should be done only through a notification-based process in consultation with the corporation. This was to ensure transparency, public participation and institutional consultation. However, the new GHMC Act-2026 altered the statutory balance by expanding the conceptual scope of the ‘city’, the petitioners said. 

The new Act also removed the mandatory requirement of previous publication of the modifications to be made to the limits of the city which hitherto operated as a constitutional safeguard against unilaterally altering the municipal limits. The division bench headed by the Chief Justice directed the government to file counter affidavits within four weeks.