Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday admitted a PIL challenging the conferring of Cabinet ranks to advisers, special representatives of the government and chairmen of various government corporations by the state government. A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice Shameem Akhter, while admitting the PIL by TD MLA A. Revanth Reddy, issued notices to the respondents, including the TS government, directing them to file affidavits within two weeks.
Earlier, when the PIL came up for hearing, the bench had asked the TS advocate-general to explain to the court if the conferment of Cabinet rank to ministers and classification of ministers as minister of state or minister with independent charge was done under a law or in accordance with business rules or was it general practice. The A-G told the court on Tuesday that there was no specific procedure or rule for conferment of Cabinet ranks, the government accorded the rank to honour the persons holding the posts.
The TD leader had questioned the government’s conferring Cabinet rank to its advisers G. Vivekananda, R. Vidyasagar Rao, A.K. Goel, A. Ramakrishna, B.V. Appa Rao, K.V. Ramanachary, G.R. Reddy, Devulapally Prabhakar Rao, Pervaram Ramulu, Somarapu Satyanarayana, Singireddy Niranjan, Pidamarthi Ravi, Prasanth Reddy, Koppula Eswar and K.M. Sahni besides Ramachandrudu Tejavath and S. Venugopalachary. The petitioner contended that Article 164 (1A) of the Constitution has imposed a ceiling on the number of ministers who enjoy Cabinet rank to 15 per cent of the total strength of the MLAs.
