Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday asked the petitioners to clarify by January 23 whether the Indian Science Congress Association is a government body or not.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice G. Shyam Prasad was dealing with a PIL by S. Kiran Kumar and another, both research scholars of Osmania University, seeking to direct the Telangana state government and the authorities concerned to ensure that the Indian Science Congress (ISC) is held at Osmania University as scheduled.
The bench made it clear that if the Indian Science Congress Association is not a government body, it (the court) cannot issue a writ of mandamus against a private body.
The petitioners submitted that the vice chancellor and regi-strar of the university had made all the arrangements for the Science Congress to be held at Osmania from January 3 to 7 and had spent '50 crore for this.
They alleged that the conference was postponed because of false reports submitted by the chief secretary, principal secretary to Home, DGP and Hyderabad city police commissioner, to the Centre and the Indian Science Congress Association, by citing law and order problems as the reason.
