Hyderabad, November 06: The Telangana People’s Tribunal (TPT), an unofficial committee, will conduct its first hearing on Nov 13 and 14 at Telugu University, Public Gardens, Hyderabad. It will accept representations relating to suicides committed by students for the cause of Telangana.
The jury will comprise Justice BG Kolshe Patil, who resigned as justice of Bombay High Court in 1991, Prof Katy Gandevia of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hindi writer Maitreyi Pushpa and former chief secretary TK Deewan.
The jury will submit a report to the Tribunal on its opinion over the students’ suicides before December 15. The Tribunal will be headed by a retired Supreme Court judge and three retired high court judges. Their names are yet to be announced. The Tribunal will also collect opinion from various quarters in support of formation of separate Telangana.
The “terms of reference of the tribunal” are to hold public hearings in all the 10 Telangana districts to know people’s demand for Telangana. The tribunal will also receive feedback through internet and even SMSes besides traditional sampling techniques.
Speaking to mediapersons here today, Supreme Court lawyer P Nirup Reddy, at whose initiative the tribunal came into existence, said that if the verdict of Justice BN Srikrishna Committee went against Telangana, the Tribunal will release its report in favour of formation of Telangana within a week of the Srikrishna panel submitting its report.
Nirup Reddy was critical of the terms of reference of the Srikrishna Committee saying that the panel seemed not too serious about statehood to Telangana. The terms of reference did not include suicides by students and the cultural uniqueness of Telangana and the results of the bypolls held in the region recently, he added.
—Agencies