High Court Registrar threatened Telangana CS: AG

Hyderabad: Registrar (Judicial) of High Court at Hyderabad, D Tarakam, had threatened Telangana State Chief Secretary Rajiv Shrama that the latter would face contempt of court charge if he failed to issue notification for selection of junior civil judges immediately.

This was revealed by Telangana State Advocate General K Ramakrishna Reddy on Wednesday to the division bench comprising of Acting Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosale and Justice S V Bhatt. According to Telangana AG, the threatening ultimatum was given to Chief Secretary in February last year.

The bench was hearing petitions challenging the ongoing recruitment of junior civil judges and district judges. Senior counsel S Satyam Reddy, who is appearing as party-in-person, questioning this recruitment process found fault with the High Court administration for the present state of affairs.

It may be recalled that Andhra Pradesh government consented to the recruitment of judges by the High Court while Telangana State government opposed it on the ground that in the new State the recruitment should be done as per its rules and not under AP Rules. Finally, the High Court issued the notification on its own.

The bench posed a question to the Telangana State AG as to why it did not consult them before framing their own judicial rules. He replied that Telangana State had only adopted the old rules by merely replacing relevant names. He clarified that they did not infringe upon the High Court powers in this regard. The bench reserved the case for orders.