Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court sought the opinion, by Friday, of the TS and AP governments over constituting a joint committee headed by retired judge of the Supreme Court to settle disputes arising from the division of electricity employees. A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice P. Naveen Rao was hearing a batch of writ petitions by employees working in TS Genco and TS southern discom, challenging their allocation to AP based on their place of birth.
In an interim order, the court had earlier directed services of the employees would be continued with TS power utilities till the final disposal of the case, and their salaries would be paid by both governments, AP 52 per cent and TS 48 per cent based on the population ratio. The interim order was challenged before the Supreme Court, which refused to intervene. The apex court remanded the case to the High Court with a request to complete the hearing on a day-to-day basis.
When the case came up for hearing on Thursday, the bench proposed the committee that would also comprise five representatives from either state to frame guidelines to enable the court to resolve the dispute. The bench asked the advocates-general of both states to consult their governments and inform the court after the lunch session. When the bench resumed its hearing, the A-Gs informed that they were not able to contact the officers in view of the ongoing Assembly sessions of both states.
When the bench sought the opinion of senior counsels Vedula Venkata Ramana and C.V. Mohan Reddy, appearing for the petitioners, they opined that setting up the committee could delay resolution of the case.They said that though the petitioners, whose services had been continued with the TS power utilities following the interim order, were neither allotted work nor provided chairs to sit. The bench asked each state to contribute five names from their respective power utilities and it will form an 11-member committee to be headed by an outsider to evolve guidelines that would be acceptable to both states.
