Even as the work in courts across Telangana continued to be paralysed, the High Court of Judicature in Hyderabad suspended nine more judges, who joined the protest demanding withdrawal of the provisional list of appointments of judicial officers on Tuesday.
In a related development, all the judicial officers working in the lower courts decided to go on mass casual leave from Wednesday and observe a High Court bandh after an extraordinary general body meeting of the Telangana Judges Association.
The advocates and Bar Associations in Telangana are up in arms against the High Court, demanding recall of the provisional list because it had judges hailing from Andhra Pradesh who were being posted to subordinate courts in Telangana.
The other main demand was for immediate steps to be taken for bifurcation of the High Court as per the Andhra Pradesh State Re-organization Act, 2014.
High-voltage action
On a day of high-voltage action, agitated advocates took to the streets after locking the court complexes in all the 10 districts of Telangana. Several courts were not able to transact any business because of the boycott.
On Monday, president of the Telangana Judges Association K. Ravinder Reddy, who is the IV Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge at the Nampally Criminal Courts and Varaprasad, general secretary and XIV Additional District Judge in Ranga Reddy Courts were suspended, after they participated in a rally and called on Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan on Sunday.
According to Y. Randheer, High Court advocate, the total strength of the subordinate judges of the unified state is 827, of whom 492 were allotted to Andhra Pradesh and the remaining 335 to Telangana. Among these judicial officers, only 190 are from Telangana. The remaining are natives of Andhra Pradesh, he said.
Of the 335 officers allotted to Telangana, 145 officers belong to Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Randheer contended that it is not the case that they are surplus officers of Andhra Pradesh.
