Hyderabad: A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt of the Hyderabad HC on Wednesday said that food adulterators were more dangerous than terrorists. Dealing with a taken up case seeking to prevent the use of chemicals for ripening fruits, they said that while terrorists killed innocent people at one go using firearms, adulterators are killing people slowly by injecting poison into their bodies.
Adjourning the case for two weeks, the bench directed both states and the Centre to file affidavits within two weeks explaining the steps being taken to prevent the use of chemicals to ripen fruits and inspection reports.
On August 14 the bench had directed the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state governments to conduct surprise checks in the fruit markets of both states, collect samples, send them for lab testing and submit reports on August 19.
When the case come up for hearing the Andhra Pradesh government submitted that it has not found carbide ripened fruits in Andhra Pradesh, but the Telangana government confirmed the use of calcium carbide to ripen fruits in Hyderabad city.
TS special counsel A. Sanjeev Kumar submitted that the authorities had seized the carbide, sealed shops and had sent the fruits to labs for verifying the impact of chemicals.
Senior counsel P. Gangaiah Naidu, who appeared for fruit traders, said that officials inspected only nine shops out of 90 at the Gaddi Annaram fruit market in the city and there were no fruits in the sealed shops.
Defending the traders he said that fruits are perishable and there is no other way to ripen them.
The bench said, “Traders can sell raw mangoes and leave the job of ripening to consumers. The only way is to allow fruits to ripen naturally.”
Fiat to Centre, EC on merged areas
The division bench of acting CJ Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt sought to know from the Centre and the Election Commission whether they had followed procedures as per the Delimitation Act, 2002 at the time of merging the seven mandals of Khammam district with AP. The bench was hearing objections raised by the Registry in listing a petition moved by Bhadrachalam MLA Sunnam Rajaiah, seeking to declare Section 3 of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 merging the mandals of Chintur, Kunavaram, Vara Ramachandrapuram, Nellipaka and Bhadracha-lam with AP as ultra vires the Delimitation Act.
The MLA contended that the authorities had not followed the delimitation process while merging the seven mandals with AP.
He urged the court to declare that he is entitled to represent Bhadrachalam. The bench asked the counsels of both the Centre and EC to inform the court on August 20 whether the authorities followed the Delimitation Act, 2002.
Admissions to MBBS, BDS
A division bench comprising Acting CJ Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt directed the NTR Health University and TS to the case of the children of armed forces personnel for admission to MBBS and BDS as per reservation norms without reference to the GO issued in July changing the criteria. The bench was dealing with a petition by Keerthana challenging the GO 66 issued on July 29, 2015 prescribing criteria for giving reservation to the Children of Armed Personnel.
The petitioner said the issue of nativity was brought in to deny her seat and the basis must be the place where the person gets discharged and not the place where he joined duty. The HC directed the respondents to file their counters in two weeks.
