Telangana will honour APAT orders passed till Sept 15: Govt to HC

A two-judge bench of the High Court at Hyderabad on Friday recorded an undertaking given by the Telangana State government that it would implement and honour all orders passed by the AP Administrative Tribunal passed till September 15, 2016 with regard to its employees.

The bench is hearing three separate petitions moved by P V Krishnaiah and B Kiran Kumar, practicing advocates of the city, and another questioning the Central government notification abolishing the existing service Tribunal in so far as the State of Telangana was concerned.

The bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice U Durga Prasad Rao heard the arguments over an hour on Friday. Dr Lakshmi Narasimham, counsel for one of the petitioners, pointed out that the Telangana State government had not been honouring the orders passed by the APAT in view of the order of the Central government.

The bench had pointedly wondered how the impugned order could have been made without consultation with the High Court and under what power the cases were transferred to the High court. K Ramakrishna Reddy, Advocate General of Telangana State, said that it would honour the judgments. He produced a copy of ordinance transferring all the pending cases of Telangana State employees to High Court.

The bench said that employees, who were aggrieved by the orders of the Telangana State government in service matters after Sept 15, 2016 can approach the High Court and such cases would be placed before the single judge concerned.

It was clarified that the service matters wherein both the States of AP and Telangana State were involved, those matters would be placed before the division bench. The writ petitions are posted for final disposal to October 21 and court permitted the petitioners to challenge the ordinance.