Hyderabad High Court seeks Centre’s views on heatwave as calamity

Hyderabad: A division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar of the Hyderabad High Court on Monday directed the assistant solicitor general to file a counter affidavit on a plea by J.K. Raju, an advocate of the seeking a direction to consider the ‘heatwave calamity’ as a disaster and extend financial assistance to the victims’ families with retrospective effect under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

Vishnuvardhan Reddy, assistant solicitor general, submitted that following an earlier direction of this court the Centre has passed a detailed order on the representation of the petitioner. He said that 13th Finance Commission has made certain recommendations with regard to heatwave calamity.

Reacting to his submissions, the bench said that all those aspects to be put into an affidavit and submit before it by the next date of hearing.

The petitioner said that as many as 371 people have died due to sunstroke during this summer in the state of Andhra Pradesh due to severe heat conditions.