The Hyderabad high court on Tuesday took serious note of the callousness of the Chandrababu Naidu government in Andhra Pradesh for failing to respond to its direction for submission of a counter in connection with the withdrawal of criminal cases against several TDP leaders.
The court gave three weeks’ time for the government to submit the counter-affidavit as to why cases had to be withdrawn against the TDP leaders.
“It clearly shows the stand of the YSR Congress party is vindicated. The court clearly found fault with the issuance of GOs the Chandrababu Naidu's government withdrawing cases against party leaders,” YSRC MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy said.
He pointed out that the Naidu government had issued 132 GOs withdrawing cases, some of them very serious in nature, against 278 persons, including MPs, MLAs, MLCs, Ministers and Speaker himself and when challenged the court responded positively.
He said the cases were of serious nature which include atrocities on women and assault on government officials and ministers were also involved in them and the government has withdrawn them by GOs.
The other issue that court has taken note of is the unilateral decision of giving telecast rights of assembly proceedings on nomination basis to a favoured television channel.
The information was sought under RTI and the response was not satisfactory as the telecast rights were given to a channel owned by Chandrababu Naidu's close associate and it was unilaterally given by the Speaker without calling for any tender 'due to paucity of time.'
The issue of allotting the television rights of assembly proceedings does not come under the purview of the Speaker and this was made clear by a case in Tamil Nadu and the court has sought relevant data on the issue vindicating our stand, he said.
