Secretariat demolition: Telangana HC notice to state

HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court on Wednesday issued notices to the state and its officials from R&B, Municipal administration, and law wings to state their stand on a public interest petition filed by Professor P L Visweswara Rao of Telangana Jana Samiti who was questioning the state’s proposed decision to raise a new secretariat at the current secretariat after demolishing the existing structures.

The bench of chief justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Shameem Akther, however, refused to pass any restraint order against the state.

Petitioner’s counsel Chikkudu Prabhakar termed the decision of the state as unilateral and was contrary to the secretariat’s own business rules. The bench sought to know from him as to how courts can interfere in matters of policy formulated by the state governments. As related pleas are coming up for hearing on the same subject, the bench posted the case to August 8 for hearing all of them together along with the current plea.