HYDERABAD: Justice B Siva Sankara Rao of the High Court on Friday made it clear that he would issue Form-1 notices to Telangana state Assembly secretary V Narasimha Charyulu and law department secretary V Niranjan Rao on Monday if the order passed by him earlier was not implemented.
On April 17, the judge, while allowing the petition filed by Congress MLAs Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and SA Sampath Kumar challenging their expulsion from the membership of the state Assembly, ruled that the expulsion of the two MLAs by the Assembly was invalid on the ground that the principles of natural justice were not followed. The judge granted relief to them by setting aside the expulsion order of the Assembly and the gazette notification issued by the state government notifying vacancy for Nalgonda and Alampur (SC) constituencies.
When the court order was not implemented, the two MLAs filed contempt case seeking action against both the secretaries. Dealing with the contempt case earlier, the judge had, prima facie, felt that there was contempt in not implementing the court order. When the counsels for secretaries submitted that consultations were going on with regard to implementation of the court order (in restoring the petitioners’ membership of the Assembly, the judge posted the matter to August 10. Meanwhile, the secretaries filed appeals last week before the division bench against the single judge’s order passed in April this year.
When the contempt case came up for hearing on Friday, senior counsel Vedula Venkataramana, appearing for Assembly secretary, sought adjournment.
PIL over high rates of eatables at multiplexes
A PIL was filed in the High Court on Friday seeking directions to the authorities concerned to restrain the stalls in multiplex theatres in the state from selling non-packaged food items, cool drinks and so on at higher rates. Besides, it sought directions for allowing film viewers to carry outside food items and water bottles into the multiplexes. Petitioner P Satish Kumar, an advocate of the city, said food items like pop corn were being sold at rates ranging between `150 and `350.
TTD ritual: HC rejects plea for urgent hearing
A division bench of the High Court on Friday refused to consider the plea of the petitioners’ counsel to have an urgent hearing on the issue of live telecast on TV channels and CCTV recording of the Maha Samprokshanam programme, to be held from August 11 to 16, by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams. The bench, rejected the plea of the counsel for B Anil Kumar of Guntur district in AP and Bhupendra K Goswami from Gujarat.
PIL to include women in TS cabinet dismissed
Making it clear that there is no provision in Article 164 of the Constitution that provides any constitutional compulsion as to inclusion of any particular community of citizens in the council of ministers, a division bench of the High Court has recently dismissed a PIL seeking directions to the Telangana state chief minister for recommending the name of a woman MLA belonging to the ruling party, particularly from SC, ST and BC communities, into the state cabinet. “It is within the domain of the chief minister to make his choice,” the bench noted.