Direction to make temporary facility in AP sought AP HC Samiti impleads in petition on separate court Summons issued to Jagan, aides
The Andhra Pradesh High Court Sadhana Samiti on Monday decided to implead (sue in a lawsuit that has been commenced) as a party to the petition pending before the Hyderabad HC seeking constitution of a separate AP HC.
Samiti office bearers sought a direction to the AP government to make a temporary arrangement to set up the court in AP instead of waiting till the completion of permanent accommodation
D.S.N.V. Prasad Babu, convener of the Samiti, said that hundreds of litigants visit Hyderabad HC from the 13 districts of AP everyday and have to spend a day or two to follow up their cases.
“If AP takes steps to continue the HC in a rented building instead of waiting till completion of permanent accommodation, the government will earn revenue through taxes on the expenses of the litigants and officers spent for their lodging, boarding and travelling,” he said. Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar of the Hyderabad High Court has directed the selection committee of the High Court to regularise the services of P. Murali Mohan Reddy and three others judges of the Fast Track Courts (FTC) as regular district judges.
Mr Murali Mohana Reddy, Seeram Sarada Devi, Busi Reddy Sunitha and G. Bhuvaneswari Raju had challenged the action of the High Court in not regularising their services on par with other FTC judges.
Dr K. Lakshmi Narasimha, counsel for the petitioners, argued that the selection committee refused to consider the petitioners’ cases on the ground that they had not secured minimum qualifying marks in the interview.
He said they had successfully cleared the written examination, but were not selected as regular judges as they had not secured the minimum qualifying marks in the interview.
Dr Narasimha pointed out that the advertisement inviting applications from eligible and qualified FTC judges did not prescribe minimum qualifying marks in the interview.
While allowing the petitions, Justice Sengupta said “Neither in the advertisement nor in the rules is there any such stipulation for securing minimum qualifying marks in the viva test. The rules also do not mention minimum qualifying marks”.
The bench made it clear that the selection committee must stick to the norms published at the time of commencement of the selection process and declared the decision of the committee as illegal and directed it to regularise the services of the petitioners. The court of the metropolitan sessions judge at Nampally here took cognisance of the first chargesheet filed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the illegal assets case pertaining to YSRC chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. The court issued summons to the accused in the chargesheet, Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy, his auditor V. Vijay Sai Reddy and Jagati Publications (publishers of Sakshi newspaper) to appear before it on May 2 in connection with the chargesheet.
The ED, that is investigating the disproportionate assets case pertaining to Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy, filed its first chargesheet recently with several offences connected to money laundering.
The ED, in its chargesheet, said that it tracked the trail of money to Jagati and highlighted certain violations regarding transfer of money from NRIs. It also recorded the statements of these investors who stated that they were lured into investing in Jagati Publications by the then chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy and Mr Vijay Sai Reddy. The Telangana government is considering a plan to supply seven hours of power to farms through solar projects. An action plan will be submitted to the government for seven hours of solar and two hours of thermal power to agricultural fields, a senior official of Telangana energy department said.
“Agricultural pump sets needed to be replaced with solar ones by the Rabi season. For this, we would like to use the `500 crore loan given by the Power Finance Corporation, but this needs ratification from the government,” the official stated.
The TS government has informed the Central power ministry, which visited the state to get the actual power position for the proposed 24x7 PFA scheme, that it has 20 lakh agricultural pump sets. But it is a gigantic task to convert all pump sets into solar ones, a power expert said.
According to statistics, agricultural consumption is expected to be 7,528 million units in the year 201516. In an attempt to rope in more players, the Telangana government has put a district-wise ceiling on the generation of solar power. Nalgonda has been awarded projects up to 600 MW followed by Medak with 500 MW. The ceiling for other districts (except Ranga Reddy) was 400 MW each.
TS has recently started solar projects with a generating capacity of 550 MW. It has also invited tenders for the purchase of 2,000 MW solar power.
The tariff was approved by the government earlier but several companies have stated that it cannot meet their expenses. They demanded a rate of `7 per kWh. The discoms will be convening a pre-bid meeting on April 10 with prospective bidders at the TSSPDCL office.