The plea filed by advocate Khaja Aijazuddin said that the Secretariat complex is spread across 25 acres and housed the Office of the Chief Minister of Telangana, Council of Ministers and bureaucrats. “It is respectfully submitted that within the Secretariat complex existed a temple namely Nalla Pochamma temple which is situated in one of the Blocks i.e. A Block, and two mosques namely Masjid Dafaatir-e-Muatamadi located adjacent to the ‘C’ Block and Masjid-e-Hashmi located near the ‘D’ Block”, said the plea. The petitioner argued that the temple and the two mosques were within the Secretariat building complex, Hyderabad and the same is under no dispute so far as the existence of the religious places is concerned.

The petitioner said that the Telangana government decided to demolish the Secretariat building complex and entire structures existing therein, which resulted in the filing of PILs in the Telangana High Court. On June 29, the High Court dismissed all the PILs paving the way for the demolition of the Secretariat complex building.

“The Chief Minister of Telangana has just merely apologized for the demolition of the religious structures but never committed to rebuild the religious places which were demolished. It is a settled Principle of Law, once the religious structure existed, it remains forever as the same, is enshrined under Article 26 of the Constitution of India”, said the plea.

The petitioner contended that the concerned authorities who are statutorily bound to supervise the functioning and protection of the shrines have failed to act and remained silent. The petitioner argued that the top court has been approached because the demolition of the religious places is in utter violation of the rule of law.

-IANS