HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Thursday granted time till Tuesday to the Centre and the governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to file counter affidavits on a PIL seeking division of the existing High Court.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and justice PV Sanjay Kumar was dealing with a PIL filed by T Dhangopal Rao, a resident of the city, seeking directions to both the state governments to give concurrence for constitution of separate High Courts for both the states in view of the announcement of the Union Law Minister that delay in division of the High Court was due to non-concurrence of the Chief Ministers of AP and Telangana states.
On Monday, the bench had announced that it will hear the plea on a day-to-day basis from Thursday and directed both the state governments and the Centre to file counter affidavits in the case. When the matter came up for hearing on Thursday, the bench found none of the respondents had filed counter affidavits.
Telangana advocate general K Ramakrishna Reddy said they will file it immediately. On the other hand, AP advocate general P Venugopal said he wanted to place certain facts before the bench in view of allegations made against the AP government that it was not cooperating with the Centre and Telangana government for division of the existing High Court.
Meanwhile, the counsel representing the Centre sought time to file the counter affidavit. The bench adjourned the matter to Tuesday directing the governments to file counter affidavits by Tuesday.