High Court Briefs June 13 2011

Justice G. Rohini of the AP High Court directed the State Election Commission not to issue the intended election notification for the Panchayat elections until tomorrow, when the court will resume hearing the case questioning the reservations for various categories . It may be recalled that the AP Sarpanches Association filed the writ petition contending that the action of the government in providing reservations totalling to above 60 % was illegal. Senior Counsel S. Ramachandra Rao pointed out that the supreme court in a recent verdict had said that reservations cannot exceed the 50% mark and the government in the last three rounds of the elections had provided 60 % and therefore the same was unconstitutional. Badana Bhaskara Rao pointed out that the government had notified the reservation on the basis of its earlier actions in 1994, 2000 and 2006 and would proceed on the basis and had accordingly notified the same and communicated the same to the Election Commission. Justice Rohini at this stage directed the government to produce the relevant file relating to the notification and directed the matter to be listed tomorrow and in the interregnum directed the State Election Commission not to issue the election notification. The crucial factor being that once the election notification is issued , it is assumed the election process has started and the contours of the courts jurisdiction are restricted.

 A division bench of the AP High Court comprising the chief justice and Justice Vilas Afzalpurkar on Monday inconclusively heard arguments on the writ petitions questioning the decision of the Central Administrative Tribunal on the appointment of the Director General of Police for the state. CV Mohan Reddy Counsel for Gautam Kumar an aspirant to the post who had challenged the action of the government in appointing Arvind Rao pointed out that the reasoning of the CAT was sound and valid and did not warrant to be suspended. The bench for paucity of time could not complete the eharing and would here the matter tomorrow. In a separate development the bench dismissed a public interest writ petition filed by Advocate Pavan Kumar questioning the consideration of Umesh Kumar to the post of the DGP- the post falls vacant this month end on the retirement of the present incumbent. The bench found no merits in the public interest writ petition and dismissed the same. The supreme court in recent times has taken the view that there is no public interest in service matters. The PIL bench of the AP High Court comprising Chief Justice and Justice Vilas Afzalpurkar on Monday admitted a writ petition challenging the action of the government in not sub dividing the backward classes while providing reservation for elected offices in the local self government bodies. The writ petition filed by Samb asiva Rao and another would contended that once the government had decided to categorise the backward classes into A,B, C, and D based on their relative backwardness, to club them together for the purpose of public offices would be illegal and unjust.