Supreme Court refuses to set aside panel report on power staff

New Delhi: Supreme Court here on Friday declined to set aside the Justice Dharmadhikari Report on division of electricity employees between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

A division bench headed by Justice Ashok Bushan and Justice M R Shah, however, directed the Dharmadhikari Committee to look into the grievances of the employees and take a decision.

Ordering that errors in the report be corrected, it directed the Dharmadhikari Committee to decide on the salaries of Andhra Pradesh employees who have been relieved.

It also asked the panel to complete the process as early as possible. But the dismissed AP discoms' plea to set aside the committee's allocations. Discoms argued that 52:48 principle was not followed in division of employees and allotment of 655 employees to AP was a burden.

Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, on behalf of AP discoms, said it was unacceptable to allocate 655 employees to the AP as part of the AP Reorganisation Act.

However, the Supreme Court ordered the discoms to take the objections over the allocation of employees to the notice of Dharmadhikari Committee within two weeks.

The court has also made it clear that if there were objections, the committee should be open and resolve them as soon as possible.