Hyderabad: Justice Vilas V. Afzul-purkar of the Hyderabad High Court on Thursday referred a plea moved by Congress MLA T. Jeevan Reddy of Jagtial Assembly constituency in Karimnagar district, to the division bench.
The MLA petitioned against non declaration of 21 mandals as drought-affected, despite repeated recommendations by the district collector.
The MLA brought to the notice of the court that though the district collector had sent proposals to declare 40 mandals in the district as drought-hit, the state government had declared only 19 mandals on October 7, 2015, as drought affected.
He said that gross injustice was done to Karimnagar district in declaring it as drought-affected when compared to districts like Nizamabad and Medak where the entire district was declared drought-effected.
He told the court that the government had left out the entire Jagtial sub-division which is severely affected and also all mandals of his constituency.
He urged the court to direct the government to reconsider declaring 21 mandals in the district as drought-affected, besides ordering to extend compensation to farmers for crop damage by way of input subsidy, reschedule of crop loans etc.
While perusing the affidavit, the judge pointed out that the contents of the petition are similar to that of a PIL, and directed the registry to refer the case to the PIL bench headed by Acting Chief Justice.
