No fresh notice to Speaker: Hyderabad High Court

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Thursday expressed its disinclination to issue a fresh notice to the Telang-ana Assembly Speaker on petitions seeking a direction to expedite hearing of disqualification petitions filed by the TD and Congress MLAs.

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt was hearing petitions by the TD and Congress leaders seeking directions to the Assembly Speaker and council chairman to expedite hearing and dispose of the petitions pending before them.

TD leader E. Dayakar Rao moved a plea stating that he had moved the petition before the Speaker seeking disqualification of three party MLAs — Talasani Srinivas Yadav, Teegala Krishna Reddy and Challa Dharma Reddy — for joining the TRS.

Congress MLA Sampath Kumar said he filed petitions before the Speaker to disqualify Kale Yadaiah, D.S. Redya Naik, G. Vittal Reddy and K. Kanakaiah for joining the TRS without resigning from the Congress.

Counsel for the petitioners brought to the notice of the bench that the Speaker has refused to accept the notice. He wanted the court to issue a fresh notice as the Speaker is only chairman of the tribunal which is to decide the disqualification cases.

Expressing its disinclination to issue another notice, the bench said that it was aware that the Speaker may not accept even its first notice.

Asking what should be done in these circumstances, the bench sought the assistance of K. Ramakrishna Reddy, advocate general of Telangana, to deal with the matter.

The advocate general said, “Usually the Speaker does not accept notices from any of the courts. It is the prerogative of the Speaker and the Speaker has every right to reject the notice and the court has no jurisdiction to question the power of the Speaker.

While adjourning the case to August 20, the bench said that it will decide the matter based on merits.

HC upholds rules for DSC-2015
The Hyderabad High Court on Thursday upheld a GO issued by the AP government for the recruitment of teachers through DSC 2015.

While dismissing a petition by Mr Mahasivabhattu Venugopalkrishnamraju and other aspirants for teachers’ posts, Justice R. Kantha Rao held that the petitioners had failed to show valid grounds to set aside the rules issued by the government through the GO in November 2014.

The petitioners had challenged the Andhra Pradesh Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) cum Teacher Recruitment Test (TRT) for the posts of teachers (Scheme of Selection) Rules, contending that the rules were contrary to law and the Constitution as well as the Right to Education Act, 2009 and NCTE guidelines.

The judge ruled that there was no ground to say that the GO was against the NCTE guidelines.

The judge said: "The court is not supposed to interfere with the eligibility criteria or age limit prescribed by the government in the exercise of its power."

Referring to the prayer of the petitioners to allow them to take up only TRT examinations as they had already qualified for the TET , the judge said that the rules framed by the government under the GO clearly indicated that the candidates should have either qualified in earlier APTETs or should obtain minimum qualifying marks in the present TET cum TRT.
 
Three months given to appoint V-Cs
The Hyderabad High Court on Thursday granted three months to the Telangana government for completing the process of appointing vice-chancellors to various universities in the state.

A division Bench comprising acting chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt was dealing with a PIL by Forum for Good Governance represented by its secretary Mr M. Padmanabha Reddy, challenging the government’s inaction in appointing vice-chancellors to as many as 10 universities in the state.

The petitioner submitted that several universities in the state were functioning with in-charge vice chancellors and the government had not initiating steps to appoint full time V-Cs; also, most varsities were functioning with less than 50 per cent of the sanctioned teaching staff.

Intervening at this stage, additional advocate general J. Ramachandra Rao submitted that the government had proposed to amend the statute to appoint vice-chancellors directly, instead of through the chancellor (Governor), and urged the court to grant 6 months to complete the appointments.

The Bench asked how the government could directly select vice-chancellors without there being a search committee.

Mr Ramachandra Rao replied that the government would make appointments based on the report of the search committee.

The Bench said that it would not grant six months in view of the interests of students and directed the government to complete the process within three months.

AICTE gets 4 weeks on 99 tech colleges
The Hyderabad High Court on Thursday granted four weeks to the All India Council for Technical Education to take a decision with regard to granting of approval to 99 private engineering colleges in TS.

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt, was dealing with appeals by the JNTU Hyderabad with regard to the affiliation row.

It may be recalled that in July, the court had directed the AICTE and JNTU to take a decision with regard to granting of approval and affiliation to the 99 private engineering colleges based on inspection reports.

When this matter come up for hearing Thursday, counsel for the AICTE, submitted that they had constituted experts teams to analyse the reports and urged the court to grant six weeks to take a final decision for granting approval. The Bench said that six weeks were too long and asked the AICTE to finish the job within four weeks.
 
HC seeks TS, AP stand on Braou
A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt of the Hyderabad High Court on Thursday asked the AP and TS governments to spell out their stance on extending the services of Dr B.R. Ambedkar Open University to the students of AP.

The bench was dealing with a taken up matter seeking to declare the action of the varsity authorities in not extending the services of the varsity  in the AP since the enactment of the Reorganisation Act, 2014 and jeopardising the careers of about 3.50 lakh students as arbitrary and illegal.

After hearing the claims of the advocate generals of both the states with regard to jurisdiction of the varsity, the Bench advised both states to keep aside their differences and take an appropriate decision in the interests of the students.

The Bench said that it had received more than 500 letters from students who were apprehensive about their future and it was the responsibility of the governments and the court to protect the interests of the students.

The Bench asked the AGs of both the states to spell out their stand on the issue on August 13.