HYDERABAD: Hyderabad High Court chief justice KJ Sengupta has constituted a full bench comprising justices R Subhash Reddy, KC Bhanu and Raja Elango to decide a crucial question of law whether the existing judges of the common High Court have the power to deal with cases pertaining to the state of Andhra Pradesh.
Recently, a single judge, during hearing of a contempt case, raised the issue of jurisdiction of the judges of the common High Court as they did not take a fresh oath to perform as judges of the common High Court. The single judge sought clarification from the Centre on the issue whether this court had the jurisdiction over the state of AP in view of certain provisions of Section 40 of the AP Reorganisation Act.
Meanwhile, one of the practising advocates of the High Court moved an appeal before the division bench headed by the chief justice against the decision of the single judge. The chief justice then decided to refer the matter to a full bench.
On Friday, the bench comprising the chief justice and justice PV Sanjay Kumar said that it would hear the arguments in the contempt case which was earlier with the single judge.
Former advocate-general CV Mohan Reddy, appearing for the petitioner, said that he was interested in punishing the negligent officials rather than the resolution of the technical legal questions that arose during the earlier hearing. The petitioner filed the contempt petition against the officials for not paying them the compensation for the land taken away from his father, a freedom fighter.
The bench noted that several issues involving important provisions of the Constitution and the AP Reorganisation Act needed to be answered before taking up the contempt plea. The chief justice asked the assistant solicitor-general to respond to the issue and adjourned the hearing to Monday.