Hyderabad: The TRS which faced a setback in the Hyderabad High Court in the matter of appointments of parliamentary secretaries during its first term has decided to adopt the Chhattisgarh model this time.
The TRS in its first term had had appointed MLAs D. Vinay Bhaskar, Jalagam Venkat Rao, V. Srinivas Goud, G. Kishore Kumar, V. Satish Kumar and Kova Laxmi as Parliamentary Secretaries through a GO on Dec. 29, 2014. It subsequently issued the Telangana Parliamentary Secretaries (Appointment, salaries, allowances and miscellaneous provisions) Act, 2015 adding legal sanctity to the appointments.
On May 1, 2015, the Hyderabad High Court stayed the appointments and said the Act specified the power of appointment with the Chief Minister whereas the appointment order was issued in the name of the Governor.
The state government approached the Supreme Court which expressed its disinclination in intervening with the order.
Interestingly, the then BJP government led by Mr Raman Singh, which had also appointed parliamentary secretaries, had succeeded in the judicial scrutiny by the Chhattisgarh High Court.
Mr Raman Singh had appointed 11 MLAs as parliamentary secretaries to assist different ministers through an executive order instead of through the Governor. When the appointments were challenged, a division bench of the Chhattisgarh High Court upheld them.
The bench of Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice Sha-rad Kumar Gupta observed that a parliamentary secretary was not anathema to the Constitution.
Sources said Mr Rao recently asked senior leaders and officers to find out how the Chhattisgarh government had succeeded. The authorities explained that Clause (1A) of Article 164 enjoins that the total number of ministers, including the Chief Minister, in the Council of Ministers in a State shall not exceed 15 per cent of the number of members of the Assembly of that state.
