Prove you have no interest in PIL, Hyderabad HC tells chief secretary IYR Krishna Rao

HYDERABAD:Pointing out that the petitioner was part of the decision-making process on ‘Swiss Challenge’ issue, a division bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday asked former chief secretary IYR Krishna Rao to prove that he has no personal interest in filing the PIL  challenging the ‘Swiss Challenge’ method approved by the Andhra Pradesh government to develop the new capital city Amaravati.

The court directed Rao to file an additional affidavit in this regard. The bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice K Vijaya Lakshmi was dealing with the PIL filed by Krishna Rao alleging the ‘Swiss Challenge’ method was approved contrary to the guidelines framed by the Supreme Court and it was against the rules of the AP Infrastructure Development Enabling Act (APIDE) and sought the court to set aside the same.

When the matter came up for hearing, AP advocate general Dammalapati Srinivas raised an objection in filing the PIL by the former chief secretary challenging the Swiss Challenge method. In fact, he was part of the decisions taken by the State government for implementation of the Swiss Challenge method. The petitioner has not mentioned these aspects in the petition, he pointed out. Taking these submissions into consideration, the bench asked the petitioner to tell whether he was the chief secretary or not at the time the decision was taken by the government on the issue, and how he could file a case if he was part of the process.

In reply, Krishna Rao, appearing as party-in-person, told the court that majority of the decisions were taken on the issue only after his retirement from the CS post. He sought some time for filing an additional affidavit by including all these issues. The bench directed him to prove that he has no personal interest in filing the PIL and granted him one week time for placing all details in the form of an additional affidavit before the court, and adjourned the case to next week.

IYR’s demands

Krishna Rao, in his petition, sought the court to declare as illegal the GOs issued by the State government approving the proposals made through the amended Swiss Challenge method submitted by the Singapore-based Ascendas-Singbridge and Sembcorp Development consortium for the capital city construction. He also sought for declaring GO 179 directing the CRDA commissioner to have an agreement on revenue sharing with the Singapore consortium and the share holders, as illegal. He sought the court to direct the AP government to call for fresh tenders under open competitive bidding.