A Division Bench of Hyderabad High Court comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyothisen Gupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar on Friday stayed the operation of the order issued by the Telangana government appointing Parliamentary Secretaries as this was patently illegal and made it clear that any further appointment to this post shall be only after permission of the court.
2 writ petitions
The Bench was dealing with two separate writ petitions filed by Revanth Reddy of TDP and G. Sukhender Reddy of Congress. They challenged the Constitutional validity of Telangana Parliamentary Secretaries (Appointment, salaries, allowances and miscellaneous provisions)Act, 2015.
Sole objective
The petitioners said that impugned Act has been brought out with the sole objective of conferring the rank of Minister to many members of the State legislature, in an indiscriminate manner.
6 appointments
It may be recalled that the government has made six appointments of Parliamentary Secretaries vide GO Ms No.173 dated Dec. 29, 2014. MLAs D. Vinay Bhaskar, Jalagam Venkat Rao, V. Srinivas Goud, G. Kishore Kumar, V. Satish Kumar and Kova Laxmi are appointed to the said posts.
Procedure of appointment
The Bench found that the procedure for appointment is not followed and prima facie interim orders are necessary. The GO is patently illegal and can not be allowed to be operated upon.
The Bench said that any further appointments to these posts shall be made only after the prior permission of the court. The detailed counter affidavits are to be filed and the case is adjourned to June .
