HYDERABAD: Questioning the Telangana government as to why it was not uploading Government Orders (GOs) on its website, a division bench of the Telangana High Court on Monday directed the State to file a detailed counter affidavit by February 28 on the PIL seeking directions to the authorities concerned to place/post all the GOs, circulars and notifications in the official website.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A Abhishek Reddy, dealt with the PIL filed by BJP leader Perala Sekhar Rao, complaining that the people of the State are put to a lot of hardship due to the non-posting of thousands of Government Orders in the government website.
During the course of the hearing, the bench expressed its displeasure with the government for its failure to file a counter affidavit despite Court direction in September last year.
According to the petitioner, of the total 1,04,171 Government Orders of various departments issued between June 2, 2014 and August 15, 2019, about 43,462 Government Orders were missing in the website. The government has been deliberately not been posting the GOs and circulars in the public domain due to ‘pressure’ from political bosses, and as a result the general public were kept in dark as they could not get access to any vital information relating to various schemes and welfare programmes, alleged the petitioner.
Before the formation of Telangana state, the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh used to promptly publishing / place the GOs in the public domain. The bench posted the matter to February 28 for further hearing.