A Division Bench of the Hyderabad High Court, comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice A. Shankara Narayana, on Tuesday directed the A.P. government to respond to the PIL seeking payment of compensation to the families of tribals killed in police encounter in Andhra-Orissa Border forests recently.
Trade Union Co-ordination Centre (TUCC), represented by its president Narayana Swamy, requested the court to direct the State to pay Rs. 40 lakh as compensation to each of the family of nine tribals. He sought inquiry into the incident.
The Bench wanted to know the place of encounter and whether the court had territorial jurisdiction.
The court was told that the Vishakhapatnam Rural police participated in the encounter and hence they were approaching this court. The Bench ordered notices and adjourned the case.
‘Spell out stand on
cock fights’
The Division Bench also wanted the A.P. government to file a sworn affidavit to spell out its stand on cock fights during Sankranti festive season in January 2017.
The bench was dealing a petition by Narahari Jagadish Kumar, a native of West Godavari, who sought a direction to the authorities to take stringent steps to prevent cock fights with betting during Sankranti.
This case was initially disposed of by the High Court last year when the police said that they were taking all the steps.
A prominent politician went to the Supreme Court, which remanded the matter back.
The Animal Welfare Board said that cock fight was against the law preventing cruelty to animals. The case will be listed next Tuesday.
Judgment in vote-for-note scam reserved
Justice T. Sunil Chowdary of the High Court on Tuesday declared that the judgment in the case filed by N. Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of A.P., in vote-for-note scam was reserved and would be delivered later.
The judge heard the arguments on behalf Mr. Naidu, A. Ramakrishna Reddy, MLA from YSRCP, ACB of Telangana, and the impleading party, Undavalli Arun Kumar. The special court of ACB cases directed the agency to investigate and file report on the role of Mr. Naidu. This was done at the behest of YSRC MLA. Mr. Naidu came to the court challenging the orders of the ACB court. He said after charge-sheet was filed, a third party cannot seek fresh probe. On Tuesday all the counsel submitted list of cases they relied upon.
