HYDERABAD: Expressing displeasure at the authorities for non-implementation of judicial orders passed by the Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal, a division bench of the High Court on Friday directed the chief secretary of AP state to file an affidavit undertaking that he will review all the cases, where the orders of the tribunal have become final and not been implemented so far, and ensuring that all those orders are implemented in a time bound manner.
“It is a matter of grave concern that the tribunal orders are being ignored by the executive apparatus of both AP and Telangana states. Such inaction in responding to and implementing the judicial orders mocks at the rule of law”, it observed.The bench of Justice C V Nagarjuna Reddy and Justice G Shyam Prasad was dealing with a writ petition by M Venkateswara Rao and seven others from East Godavari district complaining about non-implementation of the orders of tribunal passed in December 2014.
The case of the petitioners is that the tribunal allowed their plea by setting aside the proceedings of the authorities and directing all the respondent authorities to regularise their services in the existing vacancies / future vacancies of Class-IV from the date on which they have completed 5/10 years of service subject to their fulfilling the conditions specified in GO 212 dated April 22, 1994.
The tribunal has directed the authorities to pass appropriate orders within three weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of its order. When these orders were not implemented the petitioners approached the High Court for relief.
When the matter came up for hearing, the government counsel for services of AP submitted that though the orders has not been questioned in any manner, the petitioners were found not eligible as per the aforementioned GO. The counsel, however, candidly admitted that no order has been passed till date. The bench said that every day the court has been receiving several writ petitions seeking implementation of the tribunal orders which have become final.
“In order to enforce the orders of the tribunal, this court has devised a method, whereby by granting time for implementation, conditional appearance of the respondents is ordered, thinking that such a method may yield positive result. We are disappointed that the expectation of this Court is proved wrong,” it remarked.
Following a plea by the government counsel and assurance that the order will be implemented, the bench decided not to summon the respondent authorities who included district collector and others for non-implementation of the tribunal order. The bench posted the matter to August 28 for further hearing.