VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday witnessed heated exchanges between Justice Rakesh Kumar and State government advocates during hearing on a few habeas corpus petitions with the judge commenting that he was "threatened" at the last sitting and the latter strongly objecting to the same.
The hearing resumed in the backdrop of the government's affidavit wherein it has requested that the senior judge recuse himself, perceiving in his observations strong bias against it.
The government request came after the division bench comprising Justice Rakesh Kumar and Justice Uma Devi had earlier declared that it would examine if there was a constitutional breakdown in the State as part of the hearings on the habeas corpus petitions.
The bench had also rejected government objections to its decision and refused to defer hearing - as sought by the government to give it time to file an appeal in the Supreme Court. Thursday’s hearing resumed against this background.
When Justice Rakesh Kumar said he was "threatened" during the last hearing, the government’s special advocate Satyanarayana Prasad and lawyer YS Vivekananda questioned how could a request to defer the hearing be construed as a threat. To this, the Judge clarified that he didn’t mean it.
However, Satyanarayana Prasad, while strongly objecting, submitted that Advocate General S Sriram wasn't even given an opportunity last Monday to present his arguments or cite relevant judgements and, mincing no words, said that the Advocate General wasn’t given the respect due to him.
He further argued that judges cannot make off the cuff remarks or issue oral orders. "It is not legally acceptable and the same was clarified by the Supreme Court several times," he said and added that the government must be given the opportunity to file a counter in the case and present its arguments.
He informed the bench that the government would move the Supreme Court against the high court decision to examine the question of constitutional breakdown in the State and requested that hearing be deferred to enable the government file an appeal in the Apex Court. However, the bench rejected the request, and pointed out that there was no stay order from the Supreme Court till now and hence, the hearing would be continued.
Prasad argued that the high court was taking up issues, which are not raised in the petitions, suo motu. As Prasad had to appear for another hearing in the Telangana High Court, the bench deferred the hearing for the time he was away.
'Government advocate obstructing court proceedings'
Taking a serious view of Prasad’s repeated requests for deferring the hearing, the bench recorded in its official records that he was obstructing the court proceedings. Later, the hearing was deferred to Thursday