Telangana courts test of its powers

The Telangana state government’s stand that it has the power, under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, to repeatedly amend laws through executive order will come up for judicial scrutiny.

Parliament had made a provision, in Section 101 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act that enabled the Telangana state government to adapt, repeal or modify laws of undivided AP.

According to Telangana state Advocate-General K Ramakrishna Reddy, Section 101 empowered the government to adapt, repeal or amend laws by executive order for two years from June 2, 2014, when the state was formed, without seeking legislative consent.

Advocate Sivaraju Srinivas, who is fighting the case against amending the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act through an executive order, said, “The state government cannot use its powers under Section 101 arbitrarily. It amounts to the Executive usurping the power of the Legislature.”

He said Section 101 empowered the government to amend or repeal a law through an executive order only once. It does not empower the government to make repeated changes to a law which is already adapted, through executive order.

Advocate S. Sriram, who is fighting cases against changes to laws pertaining to state universities to appoint vicechancellors, said, “Section 101 is an exigency power, it cannot be an alternative to the Legislature and it does not have retrospective effect.”

He said that after adapting a law, subsequent changes can be made either by the Legislature or by way of Ordinance in case of urgency, but not through executive order.

The government is relying on a judgment delivered by the Jharkhand High Court on a similar issue of amending a law through executive order by citing Section 85 of the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000.

In Rashmi versus State of Jharkhand, a division bench of the Jharkhand High Court ruled that once a state adopted an existing law, it would be treated as law that was in existence before the appointed day.