The Supreme Court on Friday rejected petitions to grant stay of bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and thus cleared all legal hurdles for the new State of Telangana to come into being effectively from June 2.
A three-member Division Bench headed by Justice H. L. Dattu today was dealing with a batch of writ petitions filed questioning the action of the Union government in bifurcating Andhra Pradesh to enable the formation of Telangana State. Former chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, YSRCP MP Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy, TDP MP C.M. Ramesh, BJP leader Raghurama Krishnam Raju, former MLA Adusumilli Jayaprakash and a number of advocates were among those who had filed the writ petitions in the apex court.
The petitioners had challenged the action of the Union government, including Parliament in passing the A. P. Reorganization Bill, 2013 when the same was rejected earlier by the State Assembly. They also questioned how the State could be divided when Article 371 (D) was in vogue besides a number of legal and technical errors were in the bill regarding Hyderabad being made a common capital, empowering the Governor to deal with law and order issues, sharing of water and electricity between the two States and so on.
The petitioners urged the Supreme Court to grant stay of the Appointed Day of June 2 for the new State of Telangana to become the 29th State of the country and also wanted the writ petitions to be dealt with by a Constitution Bench.
While pointing out that the issue was very sensitive and of a very serious nature, the Division Bench admitted the writ petitions but refused to grant any stay though decided to issue notices to the respondents, including the Centre, State government, Union Ministry of Home Affairs and others. As regards the plea for the case to be transferred to the Constitution Bench, the division bench said a decision in this regard would be taken later.
The petitioners like Rajya Sabha member C.M. Ramesh felt that it was a good sign in the apex court deciding to issue notices to the respondents and that once such a formality was completed, they would again move the court and hoped a favorable decision is likely in the matter. However, the refusal to grant stay has now cleared all legal hurdles for the Telangana State to come into being on the Appointed Day of June 2. (NSS)
