NGT Dismisses Plea Against Musi Project

Hyderabad: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday dismissed an application filed by BRS leader Patlola Kartik Reddy, who had challenged the Musi riverfront development project, calling it premature.

The tribunal observed that the grounds raised by the petitioner were addressed in the terms of reference (ToR) issued by the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority, declined to entertain the application at the stage of admission and dismissed it.

The petitioner had contended that the state government was proceeding with construction activities without obtaining environmental clearance (EC). He sought directions to restrain the authorities from continuing any development work and urged the tribunal to impose penalties for activities already undertaken.

Appearing for the state, additional advocate-general Tera Rajinikanth Reddy informed the bench that the process for obtaining environmental clearance had been initiated. He submitted that any ongoing activities were being carried out in compliance with the ToR, which outlined the scope and methodology for conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

AAG Rajinikanth Reddy argued that the application was premature and politically motivated, alleging that it was part of an attempt to oppose the project by using legal proceedings as a platform. Senior counsel Srinath Sridevan, appearing for the Musi Riverfront Development Corporation Limited, also opposed the plea.

Marks, Rank List For 536 Posts Will Stay

The Group-1 recruitment attained finality after the Supreme Court on Thursday said it was not inclined to intervene in the judgment of the Telangana High Court, which had restored the marks list and rank list issued by the Telangana Public Service Commission for 536 posts.

A judge of the High Court in September 2025 had ordered re-evaluation of the answer papers and cancelled the selection process due to alleged irregularities. A division bench of the High Court had subsequently set aside the single judge orders allowed the recruitment based on the marks and ranks.

Challenging the division bench orders, some unsuccessful aspirants of Group-1 exams filed special leave petitions before the Supreme Court. They argued that the division bench did not consider the alleged discrepancies in the evaluation and that it had relied only on the submissions of the TGSPC.

The Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta was not inclined to intervene, and dismissed all the SLPs.

The division bench examined the recruitment process, the method of evaluation adopted by the commission, and the grounds on which the single judge had intervened. The court observed that there were no allegations of mala fide, fraud, or proven systemic irregularities in the conduct of the examination. It held that in the absence of any demonstrated violation of statutory rules or arbitrariness, the directions to order re-evaluation with moderation or to re-conduct the Mains examination could not be sustained.

The bench noted that the method of evaluation had been uniformly applied in larger public interest and that no candidate could be said to have been prejudicially affected on that account. After undertaking a detailed analysis of the evaluation procedure and considering the submissions of all parties, the court concluded that the single judge`s reliance on the principles laid down in the ‘Sanjay Singh’ case for ordering moderation was misplaced in the facts of the present case.

The division bench held that the integrity of an examination conducted by a constitutional body like the public service commission could not be doubted on the basis of surmises and unsubstantiated allegations, and therefore the alternative direction for re-conduct of the examination was also found to be unsustainable.