Honorarium too less for rtd judges: Telangana HC
Hyderabad: A two-judge panel of the Telangana High Court, comprising Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, rejected a letter issued by the government for the appointment of retired judges as members of an appellate authority for the Telangana State Pollution Control Board, as the remuneration allocated for the same was inadequate. “A […]
Hyderabad: A two-judge panel of the Telangana High Court, comprising Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, rejected a letter issued by the government for the appointment of retired judges as members of an appellate authority for the Telangana State Pollution Control Board, as the remuneration allocated for the same was inadequate. “A retired judge of a high court cannot be made to work for an honorarium of five thousand rupees a month and forwarding such a request to the court for its approval is demeaning to the stature of the court,” said the Chief Justice while expressing her displeasure over the letter forwarded to the registry of the court. Justice Reddy while expressing similar views suggested to the Advocate General to apply the convention of paying the salary allocated to the post held by the judges before their retirement. It posted the matter on 27 April with a direction to revise the pay scale for the said posts.
Compensation for NSG Commando
The panel expressed its displeasure for the delay in compensating an NSG commando who was crippled during the terror attack on Pathankot Air Force station in Punjab on January 2, 2016. The court, which learnt about the pathetic condition of Kanagala Sriramulu through media reports, took it up as a public interest case and sought prompt action from the Centre and the State. It stated that merely providing land was inadequate considering the inability of the petitioner to gather the financial resources to build a house on it. It further noted that the Advocate general in 2018 had stated that steps are being taken to provide financial assistance to the Commando. It directed the Principal Secretary, State Finance department to be present if financial assistance has not been disbursed before the next hearing of the case. The case was posted on June 3.
Posts against Tablighi members
The panel dismissed a petition concerning social media posts against members who had attended the Tablighi Jamat meeting in Delhi’s Nizamuddin. The petitioner, Khaja Aijazuddin, a lawyer, had also approached the Supreme Court with a similar prayer. The panel observed that the prayer of the petitioner was not maintainable before the high court of a State and had to be brought up before the Supreme Court. It dismissed the prayer of the petitioner to register criminal complaints against individuals who had posted posts that were allegedly Islamophobic and directed the petitioner to approach authorities with criminal complaints.
Quota in local body polls
The panel in a batch of petitions dealing with the State government’s action in reducing the reservation percentages for OBCs in local body elections from 34% to 22% directed the state to file an additional affidavit to provide a timeline for conducting a survey by the Telangana Backward Class Commission. The Supreme Court on March 4 in the Vikas Kishanrao Gawali case held that every State has to mandatorily follow the 50% ceiling bar for SCs/STs/and OBCs in local body elections. Telangana Backward Classes Cooperative Finance Corporation Limited, Hyderabad, had conducted a socio-economic survey, based on which the state is to decide reservation percentages in local body elections. The panel noted that such a survey had to be conducted by a designated Backward Class Commission with empirical data. The data was for the purpose of the voter base for the next local body election. The case was posted on June 25.
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