The Supreme Court on Friday declined to restrain the Centre from introducing in Parliament the Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Bill for the creation of Telangana.
A Bench of Justices H.L. Dattu and S.A. Bobde dismissed a batch of nine petitions filed by MLA L. Payyavulu Keshav and several others, challenging the Centre’s decision and questioning the move to create Telangana after the Bill was rejected by the Andhra Pradesh Legislature.
In a brief order, the Bench referred to its order of November 18, 2013, when it dismissed similar petitions. “We do not see any change in the stage between November 18, 2013 and today. We decline to interfere at this stage,” the court said.
The Bench, however, made it clear that the points raised in the writ petitions could be raised in appropriate petitions later.
Advocate M.L. Sharma contended that the petition raised important questions of law. For instance, whether Article 3 of the Constitution empowered the President to recommend a Bill against the proposal/resolution of the State Assembly; and whether the President is duty bound or not to apply his mind to consider the State Legislative Assembly decision prior to his giving recommendation for sending the bifurcation bill of to parliament for approval.
Senior counsel Rohinton Nariman traced the sequence of events from the time the Srikrishna Committee submitted its report and until the Congress Working Committee decided to bifurcate the State.
Mr. Nariman said there was no immediate necessity to bifurcate the State. He said “it was being done for mala fide political reasons in view of the coming Lok Sabha elections. If the process is allowed to continue any further, it would become irreversible and cause irreparable damage.”
Senior counsel M.N. Rao argued that the introduction of the Bill in Parliament would go against the spirit of federalism as it had been rejected by the AP State Legislature — the Assembly and the council.
