Hyderabad, May 01: A division bench of the High Court comprising chief justice Nisar Ahmad Kakru and justice Vilas Afzulpurkar on Saturday made it clear that K Aravinda Rao would continue as the director-general of police until further orders.
The bench made the clarification while dealing with the writ petitions filed by the state government, Aravinda Rao and Dinesh Reddy before it questioning the Central Administrative Tribunal’s order setting aside the appointment of Aravinda Rao and for a series of directions on the procedure to be followed. The government contended that the CAT’s verdict on April 27 was contrary to the law.
The tribunal gave its verdict on a petition filed by principal secretary (home) Gautam Kumar who contended that the appointment of Aravinda Rao, ignoring several seniors, was illegal.
The High Court bench, presided by the chief justice, made it clear that the incumbent would continue in his post when advocate-general Sudershan Reddy sought either suspension or stay of the tribunal’s verdict while Jonnalagadda Sudheer, counsel for Gautam Kumar, opposed suspension of the CAT order.
“Neither the bench stayed the CAT judgment nor dismissed the writ petitions filed by various litigants. Aravinda Rao was asked to continue till June 6 when the next hearing will come up before the court,’’ Sudheer said.
Earlier in the day there was uncertainty as to which bench should hear the case.
On Friday the matter was heard by a division bench presided over by justice Ghulam Mohammad since a regular bench could not be constituted. The bench then referred the matter to the registrar to obtain orders from the chief justice. By the time the matter could be clarified the two benches were dissolved and the case came to be heard by the bench of the chief justice.
–Agencies