SC refuses urgent hearing on PIL against Telangana

Orders its tagging with other pleas

A PIL has been been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the Constitutional validity of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act that led to creation of the new state of Telangana.

A bench of justices B S Chauhan and A K Sikri today refused urgent hearing of the PIL, filed by V R KrishnaIyer Free Legal Aid Committee and ordered that it be tagged along with other similar petitions on the issue.

Advocate G Venkatesh Rao, appearing for the committee, sought urgent hearing of the PIL by citing media reports that said a "war room" is being created to drive out persons, who do not hail from Telangana, from Hyderabad.

"Let it be tagged with other similar petitions," the bench said.

A political decision has been implemented days before the tenure of the 15th Lok Sabha came to an end with an aim to get "political and electoral gains", the plea said.

It said the APR Act was passed by both Houses of Parliament "unconstitutionally and undemocratically", at the behest of the ruling Congress party at the Centre, by mala fide political maneuvers and, therefore, by no stretch of imagination can it be considered the 'will' of the people of the undivided State of Andhra Pradesh, it said.

The PIL has made Ministry of Home Affairs, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Secretary Generals of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and Cabinet Secretary as parties.

It alleged the ruling dispensation ignored the decision of Andhra Pradesh assembly and the "in-depth analysis and weighty recommendations of the 'Justice Srikrishna Committee Report - 2010".

"The Bill was introduced at the behest of a political party called Telangana Rashtra Samiti whose representation in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly was only 10 members (MLAs) in an Assembly having a strength of 294 members, thereby having only 3.99 per cent of the vote share in the total votes polled in the 2009 Assembly elections.

"Even in the 2009 general elections, the 'TRS' had won 2 seats out of the 42 MPs elected and as such had only 2 MPs," it said.

The petition said, "The enactment is violative of the fundamental rights of the people of India and the united Andhra Pradesh, as having been detrimental to and in violation of the principle of 'Federalism', which is a 'basic structure' of the Constitution.

"The enactment is violative of Article 14 'Equality before Law and Equal protection of Laws', as it is arbitrary and unreasonable, it, even fails to provide any 'objects & Reasons' to the Act, and as such has invited the grave allegations of being mala fide and oblique motives," it said.