HYDERABAD: Contending that the notification issued for holding the Teachers’ Recruitment Test (TRT) by taking all the 31 districts of the state into consideration was not contrary to the Presidential Orders, the Telangana government told the High Court on Wednesday that it was ready to adjust these posts among the erstwhile 10 districts if the court wanted it so.
Advocate-general D Prakash Reddy made this submission before a division bench comprising acting chief justice Ramesh Ranganathan and justice G Shyam Prasad which was dealing with a petition filed by G Arun Kumar and three others from Adilabad. They urged the court to suspend the impugned GO No.25 issued on October 10 to recruit 8,792 teachers and the notification issued by the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) for the posts of Secondary Grade Teachers (SGTs) in the reorganised districts.
Petitioners’ counsel S Rahul Reddy submitted that several candidates from the previous 10 districts would become ‘non-locals’ due to formation of 31 new districts. The erstwhile 10 districts should be taken into consideration till necessary amendments were made to the Presidential Orders. In fact, the impugned notification of SGT posts was issued for all the 31 districts, whereas various notifications issued by other departments in Telangana confined to only 10 districts, he pointed out.
The advocate-general said the government’s intention in issuing the above notification to fill the teacher posts in all the 31 districts was to provide employment to all the locals and to ensure that no educated and unemployed youth of the state suffered. Issuance of notification by taking the existing 31 districts into consideration should not be the ground for the court to interfere with the recruitment, he argued.
Intervening, the bench sought AG’s suggestion, saying that if the court agreed with the contention of the petitioner’s counsel and passed an order in his favour. The AG said, “Let the examination (TRT) be conducted as per schedule i.e. in February 2018 and the state will take steps to ensure that all the vacancies be rearranged and calculated as per the erstwhile 10 districts. A modified notification will be issued for the purpose and, if necessary, the date to receive applications from the aspiring candidates will be extended by another 15 days. The candidates who have already applied for the examination need not apply again.”
The bench reserved its orders to Friday. While adjourning the case, it directed the advocate-general to submit a copy of the amended District Re-organization Act to the court.
Dealing with another petition relating to TRT, the bench directed the authorities concerned to consider the representations of eligible TET qualified candidates and take a decision within two weeks of receiving the same. The petitioners questioned the logic behind issuance of GO No.25 in increasing the qualifying marks by 5 per cent for B.Ed and D.Ed candidates for all categories to apply for the examination.
‘Only 4 Miyapur documents were registered illegally’
Hyderabad: The state government informed Hyderabad HC that only four documents were illegally registered affecting about 693 acres of land and they were subsequently cancelled by revenue officials as they were aimed to create litigation on government lands, including those handed over to HMDA and TSRTC. It said that lands in three villages — Hafeezpet, Hydernagar and Miyapur in Ranga Reddy district, known as Paigah or Jagir villages, were vested in government and it has been fighting to protect these lands from encroachers like P Sanjeeva Prasad (Gold Stone Prasad).
There was no truth in the allegation that officials remained silent while persons like Prasad were fabricating records and transferring lands in these villages, it noted. In this regard, special chief secretary to revenue of Telangana BR Meena filed an affidavit, pursuant to an earlier direction by court, before the bench dealing with a PIL case by M Raghunandan Rao, advocate and BJP leader, seeking CBI probe into Miyapur land scam case.
The special CS, in his affidavit, submitted that government has filed or defended several cases in various courts right from lower courts to SC to protect its lands from encroachers. On Wednesday the bench then asked the AG to place a copy of the charge sheet along with the affidavit filed by the above officer and posted the matter to Monday.