VIJAYAWADA: High Court Registrar General BS Bhanumathi on Wednesday sought to withdraw some of the remarks made in the affidavit filed in the High Court with regard to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by BC, SC, ST, and Minority Students Federation member J Lakshminarayana. The PIL sought the court directive to declare the HC premises a red zone in view of Covid-19 cases and the “failure” of the High Court to comply with guidelines issued by the Centre to stop the spread of coronavirus.
The Registrar General, in the affidavit, filed questioning the maintainability of the PIL, mentioned that the State government was not in a mood to accept the various judgments of the High Court, which went against it. Similarly, with regard to the petition on appointment of retired judge V Eswaraiah as the Chairman of AP Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission, the Registrar General made specific references to which Advocate General S Sriram raised serious objections.
Sriram said that the appointment of Justice Eswaraiah was made after consulting the High Court Chief Justice as mandated by the AP Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission Act. Sriram made reference to a particular paragraph in the counter filed by the Registrar General following which the counsel representing the High Court, N Aswini Kumar, sought to remove the entire paragraph from it.
The High Court asked the counsel to file an affidavit seeking to remove that particular paragraph and posted the matter for further date. With respect to the verdicts that went against the government, the AG said that the State government has every right to go for appeals against the verdicts of the HC and no one can question its authority in this regard. On the Registrar General’s counter that the Assembly Speaker made objectionable comments against the court and contempt proceedings are pending against him, the AG said that there are no contempt proceedings pending against the Speaker as per his knowledge.