HYDERABAD: The Telangana government on Thursday told the High Court that the decision taken to privatise 5,100 routes by the State cabinet is well within the rules promulgated in Motor Vehicles Act, and such a decision has not attained finality since a GO has not yet been issued because of the court stay.Pursuant to earlier direction of the court, State advocate general BS Prasad placed the cabinet decision in a sealed cover before the division bench dealing with the PIL filed by Prof PL Vishweshwar Rao, vice-president of Telangana Jana Samithi, challenging the decision taken on Nov 2 to privatise permits of 5,100 routes in the TSRTC. The petitioner sought stay of all further proceedings in the issue.
The AG submitted that Section 102 of the Motor Vehicles Act accords power to the State government to take a decision pertaining to the corporation and the petitioner cannot challenge the policy decision. When the bench asked the AG to read out the contents of the cabinet decision, the AG refused to disclose the contents in the open court hall saying that it was a policy decision and cannot be disclosed in public.
Intervening, the Chief Justice said that the petitioner has filed the present PIL by relying on newspaper reports because he could not have access to the cabinet decision copy.Following direction from the bench, both AG and transport commissioner Sandeep Kumar Sultania explained to the judges the entire issue. After having brief conversation with them, the bench opined that there is no need to keep such decisions in secret when they were taken in public interest.
After perusing the contents of the cabinet decision, the bench suggested the petitioner’s counsel Chikkudu Prabhakar to come up with an amended prayer as the PIL petition challenging the State Cabinet decision on ‘TSRTC privatisation’ was at variance with its content. The bench told the counsel that the Cabinet decision was about privatisation of 5,100 TSRTC permits while the prayer was on TSRTC privatisation.
When the counsel sought some time for amending the prayer, the bench posted the matter to Nov 18 for further hearing. The bench impleaded the Central government in the case and directed it to respond to the issue. Elsewhere, Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili adjourned the case hearing to Nov 19 of two petitions filed seeking a direction to the TSRTC to pay salaries to the 49,190 striking employees for the month of September.
The judge adjourned the cases in view of batch of PILs being heard by the division bench on RTC strike issue. Petitioners - Telangana Jathiya Mazdur Union and Bahujana Karimaka Sangh contended that though the employees have resorted to strike in October, they have worked in September and hence eligible for payment of salaries.
Stay on privatisation of RTC permits extended till Monday
The bench extended the earlier interim order till Monday wherein the court directed the State govt and RTC not to take any steps which would precipitate the situation due to privatisation of 5,100 permits in view of of the cabinet decision.