Supreme Court Bench to hear PIL on division

Hyderabad: A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice H.L. Dattu of the Supreme Court on Tuesday said that it will hear a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking a direction to the Union of India to forthwith implement the promises and assurances given to the people of both the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana at the time of bifurcation of the united State of AP along with the petitions challenging bifurcation of the AP.

The bench was hearing the PIL by Dr Audimulapu Suresh, MLA from Santhanuthalapadu Ass-embly Constituency in Andhra Pradesh and Sambaraju Padmanabha Rao, a farmer from Nalgonda district in Telangana and two others.

S. Ramachandra Rao, senior counsel arguing for the petitioners, submitted before the bench that the petitioners have not challenged the bifurcation; they are seeking effective implementation of the AP Reorganisation Act and also promises made at the time of bifurcation.

He urged the court to hear the matter as more than 8 crore Telugus have become virtually stateless, helpless and hapless victims of a division of Telugus into two states causing immeasurable hardship due to non implementation of promises.

While declaring that the facts involved in the PIL also connected to the bifurcation, the CJI directed the registry to post the PIL along with the other cases of bifurcation.

Market panel chairmen plea on new clause

Chairmen of agricultural market committees Prakasam, Krishna and West Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh moved the vacation bench of the Hyderabad High Court seeking suspension of amendment to Section 5 of the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Produce and Livestock and Markets Act 1966.

The state government has amended Section 5 of the Act giving retrospective effect from January 1, 2012 by reducing the term of office-bearers of the committee from three years to one year.

The petitioners told the court that they are aggrieved with the amendment to Section 5(1) and (2) by substituting the words “to be nominated by the government” with words “to be appointed by government”.

Contending that the amendment was illegal, they urged the court to direct the government not to make any appointment/nomination for constitution of agricultural market committees for which they have been appointed between the years 2012-13.