Hyderabad: Referring to the recent observations made by the Supreme Court that judicial review could not be against the decision of governments, but only on the decision-making process, the Telangana High Court on Wednesday posed a question to petitioners, who challenged the decision to demolish the existing Secretariat building, to explain whet-her they were against the decision of the government or decision-making process.
The division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Cha-uhan and Justice Sham-eem Akther was dealing with a petition by Prof-essor P.L. Vishweshwar Rao, seeking to direct the state government not to demolish the existing Secretariat Buildings at Saifabad in Hyderabad.
Before admitting the petition, the bench issued notices to the official respondents — Chief Secretary, Principal secretary, Roads and Build-ings, secretary, legislature department, and GHMC chief — to explain the stand of the government on the contentions raised by the petitioner.
But CJ Chauhan asked the petitioner to explain whether the decision to demolish was taken by an incompetent authority or it had acted beyond its jurisdiction.
Mr Chikkudu Prabha-kar, the counsel for the petitioner, explained that the state government had not followed the business rules in taking the demolition decision.
He explained that being a public trust, the state has not acted reasonably in this issue and was wasting public money by demolishing the existing building which had structural stability and a lifespan of 50 years.
Counsel put forward 14 Supreme Court judgments and citations rega-rding the decisions on the scope of judicial review on policies taken by the governments.
The bench, however, re-minded that the Supreme Court’s observations on admission decisions, were subject to judicial review only on the grounds of violation of the Constitution, illegality or arbitrary, irrationality, procedural irregularity. It asked the counsel to explain how the court could interfere on the decision to demolish the Secretariat building.
Adjourning the case to July 18, the court asked the respondents to expla-in their stand on the petition. The court rejected counsel’s plea to stay the shifting of the offices in the existing building or to direct the government to give an undertaking that it would not shift the offices until a further hearing of the case.
