The Division Bench of the High Court at Hyderabad comprising Acting Chief Justice D. B. Bhosale and Justice A. V. Sesha Sai on Thursday declared that the contentious issue of the power of Telangana State government to issue executive orders such as the GO to amend an Act instead of taking the legislative route thorough examination and arguments would be heard on Monday.
The Bench was dealing with the case filed by official spokesperson of Congress party D. Sravan Kumar.
He submitted that the government had resorted to amending the GHMC Act paving the way for all the MLCs in the State to become ex-officio members of the corporation to vote in election to elect the Mayor.
This had been done clandestinely through the said GO.
Raghunandan Rao, senior counsel appearing for the petitioner, said that the courts had not appreciated such actions and the Reorganisation Act did not permit this.
Ramakrishna Reddy, Advocate-General of Telangana, said that the government had the powers to do this and cited the instance of Bihar State where similar situation had arisen. The Bench asked both sides to look into the provisions and place more material on Monday.
The Bench wanted to know when the meeting to elect Mayor would be convened and and listed the case for Monday.
