Scores of Telangana judges, took to city streets protesting the allotment of Andhra-origin judges to Telangana courts, with a staggering 120 of them even submitting their resignations. They marched from Gun Park to Raj Bhavan and submitted a representation to governor ESL Narasimhan.
"We held a silent protest rally," a judge said. "Our decision to protest was sudden and hence everybody could not be informed, otherwise all Telangana judges would have joined us," he said.
"We cannot work under 'Andhra judicial rulers' and hence we have decided to quit en masse," protesting judges said. "We have lost all faith in the current high court administration, the state and the Centre, as none of them responded to our grievances. HC authorities in fact sympathised with our grievance, but did nothing," the judges said in their representation. The representation further stated, "They (HC administration) are now threatening agitating advocates and even the government orally."
They made a separate representation to the president of Telangana judges' association, K Ravinder Reddy, urging him to forward their resignations to the governor, if the issue was not resolved within a week.
“At the same time, we cannot work under Andhra judicial rulers in future. We being the judges are forced to keep silent against our consciousness. We are unable to raise our voice for the future of Telangana. Therefore, with great pain and heavy heart we have decided to quit judgeship in the interest of Golden Telangana. We are committed to prevent any injustice to our judiciary. If our resignations don’t serve as an eye-opener to the authorities concerned, we are prepared to dedicate our lives by launching a fast unto death,”, they warned.
“The allocation was done by the High Court without taking into consideration the guidelines framed by the High Court in February this year. We have been seeking preparation of a fresh list of allocation between the two states as per the native districtdeclared by the judicial officers at the time of entry into service by following the guidelines notified for bifurcation of lower judiciary, and as per Section 77 of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014,” Telangana Advocates JAC co-convener T Sriranga Rao said.
By Premji
