HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Friday directed the Andhra Pradesh State chief secretary to file a counter affidavit in two weeks to counter the contempt petition filed seeking action against the authorities concerned for willful disobedience of the order passed by the court in September last year regarding the appointment of the chief information commissioner and information commissioners to the state under the Right to Information Act.
The bench of acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice M Ganga Rao was passing this order in contempt petition by the Forum for Good Governance, an NGO represented by its general secretary M Padmanabha Reddy, complaining that there has been no compliance by the state government till date and no information commissioners were appointed or even proposed so far.
On Sept 21 last year, the bench recorded the submissions of the AP advocate general Dammalapati Srinivas that the government has constituted the state information commission and a committee was constituted to appoint the chief information commissioner and three information commissioners in the state and that the process of appointments would be completed within eight weeks. While disposing of the PIL filed by the Forum, the bench directed the AP government to take steps ensuring that the process should be completed within eight weeks. Failure to carry out the court order, the petitioner forum filed the present contempt case. On the earlier occasion, the bench issued notices to the state chief secretary on the issue.
When the matter came up for hearing on Friday, special counsel of AP Ramesh sought two weeks time for filing counter affidavit.Raising an objection to the plea, the petitioner’s counsel urged the court to seek an explanation from the state government for failing to implement the court’s order.
After hearing both sides, the bench cautioned the government of passing necessary orders if it found that the violation was deliberate. The bench directed the state chief secretary to file a counter affidavit giving reasons for not making the above appointments in spite of giving an undertaking to the court and adjourned the case for two weeks.
As for Telangana state, the government counsel told the court that the government had already constituted the state information commission and appointed a chief information commissioner and a commissioner to it. If necessary the number of commissioners would be increased, the counsel added.