Hyderabad: The cream of the country’s constitutional lawyers will argue on a batch of petitions filed against the Central government’s decision to create the state of Telangana on November 18 when the Supreme Court will decide the admissibility of the petitions. The petitions were filed by leaders of different political parties.
The petitions filed by the YSR Congress and Telugu Desam have been clubbed together by the Supreme Court registry and posted for hearing on admissibility to November 18 before a bench headed by Justice J.L. Dattu.
The petitions challenge the creation of Telangana state, the status of Article 371(D), the powers of Parliament in deciding on the bifurcation of a state regardless of the state Assembly’s resolution etc.
The matter is urgent since the Union Cabinet is slated to approve the Telangana Bill and send it to the President just a few days from now.
The petitioners are from Telugu Desam’s Rajya Sabha member C.M. Ramesh and MLA Payyavula Kesav, and YSR Congress leaders D.A. Somayajulu, and Raghurama Krishnam Raju.
Legal luminaries such as Soli Sorabjee, Harish Salve, Ashok Desai, F.S. Nariman and retired Chief Justice M.N. Rao will appear on behalf of the petitioners while Attorney General of India G. Vahanavati and Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran will appear for the Union government.
A battery of top constitutional lawyers will also be part of the legal teams. This will be one of those rare cases when most of the country’s topmost lawyers will appear in a case, which will eventually decide the correctness of the legal issues involved in the decision to create the new state of Telangana.
