Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Monday reserved its orders on maintainability of a PIL moved by Sarasani Satyam Reddy, senior counsel of the High Court, seeking appointment of a permanent Chief Justice to the Hyderabad High Court and also appointment of judges.
A division bench comprising Justices V. Ramasubramanian and J. Uma Devi, while hearing the case, made it clear that it will decide only whether the PIL can be entertained or not.
Counsel for the petitioner urged the court to declare as unconstitutional and in violation of Article 216 of the Constitution the failure of the Centre to appoint a permanent Chief Justice of the High Court even after 22 months of superannuation of the previous Chief Justice.
Counsel submitted that the sanctioned strength of the HC was 61 judges, but at present, only 27 judges were holding office. He said that a 60 percent vacancy and this was crippling the functioning of the HC.
Respond to contempt plea, ex-judge told
The Hyderabad High Court on Monday issued notices to TS Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee chairman Justice P. Swaroop Reddy, former judge of the High Court, Rajeev Ranjan Acharya, Special Chief Secretary of the Telangana State Higher Education department and eight members of the committee in a contempt case by Vasavi Academy of Education and Vasavi Engineering College, Hyderabad.
Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao issued the notice while dealing with the contempt case seeking action against the respondents for fixing the fee unilaterally despite an interim order of the High Court
M. Ravindranath Reddy, counsel for the petitioners, told the court that the commission’s mandate was to see that the private professional colleges do not indulge in profiteering.
He said while fixing the fee, the TAFRC has to consult the management of the college, but in their case it acted unilaterally and the fee fixed by it was detrimental to the interests of professionally-run colleges.
While issuing the notices, the judge directed the respondents to file their counter affidavits within 10 days.
Bench moots website for AgriGold assets
The Hyderabad High Court on Monday asked state governments of AP and TS to look into possibilities of designing a web portal in consultation with their IT department to auction properties of AgriGold Group of Companies.
A division bench comprising Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice S.V. Bhatt was dealing with petitions by depositors’ welfare association of AgriGold Companies seeking a CBI probe into the fraud committed by company and also repayment of their deposits.
Krishna Prakash, special counsel appearing for AP, submitted that it would not be possible for the AP government to conduct auction of the properties of AgriGold in e-portal as the portal was designed for only e-procurement.
Counsel, while placing the list of properties of AgriGold, told the court that the company had 224 properties which are worth less than '50 crore each and nine properties worth more than '50 crore each.
The bench asked counsels for AP and TS to inform the court about possibilities for designing a web portal for auction of the properties by April 18.
