BRS asks why Congress government failed to challenge stay on Kalyana Lakshmi, Shaadi Mubarak

BRS general secretary RS Praveen Kumar questioned the Congress government’s failure to file a counter petition against the High Court stay on Kalyana Lakshmi and Shaadi Mubarak. He alleged legal lapses and accused the government of delaying welfare schemes.

Hyderabad: The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on Tuesday questioned why the Congress government failed to file a counter petition in the High Court challenging the stay on implementation of the Kalyana Lakshmi and Shaadi Mubarak schemes, despite officials allegedly preparing and submitting their remarks on the case.

Speaking to mediapersons at Telangana Bhavan here, the party general secretary R S Praveen Kumar suspected that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy himself stopped the government from filing the counter. He also demanded that Ministers Ponnam Prabhakar and Vakiti Srihari apologise to the people. He said the stay orders were a failure of the Law Department and the Chief Minister.

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“Who prevented the Advocate General and Additional Advocate General from appearing before the court?” he asked.

Praveen Kumar argued that welfare schemes could be implemented through government orders (GOs) under Article 162 of the Constitution, provided funds were approved in the State Budget. He reminded that separate legislation was not mandatory. He cited the 1955 Ram Jawaya Kapoor versus State of Punjab judgment and alleged that the government failed to place the relevant legal position before the High Court.

He said departmental officials had received communications soon after the case was filed in July and had sent their remarks and counter-related material, but the Law Department did not file the counter. He questioned why the government had engaged senior Supreme Court lawyers Siddharth Luthra and Abhishek Manu Singhvi for other cases but did not use them to defend Kalyana Lakshmi.

Praveen Kumar alleged that the government deliberately delayed the schemes for nine months and was now attempting to discontinue welfare programmes introduced during the previous BRS regime. He warned that similar court stays on Aasara, Gruhajyothi, Mahalakshmi or Rythu Bharosa should not automatically become grounds for stopping their implementation.

The former IPS officer said the government was using attention-diverting politics, including public meetings at an alleged cost of Rs 15 crore each, to shift focus away from government issues.

On the 22A prohibited land list, Praveen Kumar alleged a major land scam and claimed that officials were seeking 30 per cent commissions to remove properties from the list. He questioned the toll-free number announced by Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, as it allegedly remained non-functional and unresponsive. He also alleged irregularities involving records of 22,000 transactions and inclusion of Indiramma housing plots in the prohibited list.

He urged the Ministers not to defend the Chief Minister but to explain to the people what was happening in the government.