Hyderabad High Court: FAST must be within Constitution’s framework

Hyderabad: Responding to the displeasure of the Hyderabad High Court,Telangana advocate-general K. Ramakrishna Reddy submitted to a division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar that the government had appointed a committee to formulate the guidelines for FAST.

“The government has not been enforcing any policy at present. If the government is going to implement the policy and the guidelines, only then can the petitioners move the court. The petitioners’ rights are not violated by just appointing a committee to formulate the policy,” he said.

He urged the court to grant more time to file the counter affidavit.

Reacting to the submissions, the Chief Justice asked the AG to explain the rationale in fixing November 1, 1956, as criteria to extend the benefit to students in the GO. Justice Sengupta said, “If a student from Bihar comes to study in TS, he also must come under the framework of the policy in view of national integration. The government may bring any policy, but it should be within the four walls of the Constitution. I hope your government will not play with the court like this.”

The bench expressed displeasure at the government for not filing a counter despite a direction on December 15, 2014. The court adjourned the case for two weeks.

The bench was dealing with two petitions by former ministers of undivided AP, Dokka Manikya Varaprasada Rao and Pitani Satyanarayana, challenging a GO issued to work out modalities for the scheme and prescribing November 1, 1956 as the cut off date to extend financial assistance to students.