Hyderabad campuses of Microsoft,Infy,Wipro come under a cloud 

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 

Hyderabad: In a decision that jeopardizes land allocated to corporates and institutions such as Microsoft,Wipro,Infosys,Emaar,Indian School of Business and Lanco,the Andhra Pradesh high court on Tuesday refused to entertain petitions that challenged the power of the state wakf board to notify 1,650 acres of in Manikonda village of Ranga Reddy district as wakf land.
The court asked the companies to approach the tribunal on wakf disputes to challenge the boards decision.It also refused to vacate the injunction order given by the wakf tribunal earlier,which restrained the private companies from any land transaction in this respect.Some companies,including Lanco and Emaar,have been using this land for real estate business.
The division bench,comprising Justice V V S Rao and Justice Reddy Kantha Rao,delivered its judgment on a batch of petitions,some of which challenged the states decision to allot wakf land to private companies and some,including the state governments,which challenged the wakf boards decision to notify the area as wakf land.
The companies are likely to approach the Supreme Court,contending that land was given to them by the government.

IPS officer shunted out for taking on AP liquor mafia 

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 

Hyderabad: A senior IPS officer who was heading an investigation into Andhra Pradeshs politically-connected liquor lobby was transferred out suddenly amid talk that his probe was coming uncomfortable close to several powerful people in the state.
K Srinivas Reddy was relieved on Friday as head of the Special Investigation Team probing the illicit liquor trade and asked to take over as inspector-general of coastal security by Monday.The officer was scheduled to submit a status report on the liquor probe to the AP high court on April 16.
Talking about a possible political motive behind his transfer,without referring to any particular person,Reddy said the very nature of SITs probe was prone to political meddling and there was nothing unusual about it.
He said that the probe into liquor syndicates had been a challenging task as it involved investigating the activities of several government officials and politicians.
There are about 100 syndicates in the state and with our limited manpower,we started investigating into a few big ones like the Vizianagaram syndicate and dons like Balaraj Goud.The probe is very tough as it involves rich and influential people.In fact,we arrested an ACB official for tampering with records and several more such officers are under scrutiny, Reddy said.
Meanwhile,looking at the fate of their boss,several inspectors and DSPs who were part of the investigation,said they werent sure of continuing the probe.
Due to the liquor probe,we have made several enemies in the police and other government departments too.Looking at the fate of our senior officer,now all of us are naturally worried.The going will be tough for us as several officials might be looking for revenge, said an ACB inspector.
Even Reddys boss,DG D Bhoobathi Babu wrote to the home department for a review of the transfer order.
In response to Babus letter,chief secretary Pankaj Dwivedi replied that the government understood the concerns,but added the transfer was a must as the officer had been promoted and assigned another important task.