Aren’t Judges Born & Brought Up In Hyderabad Belonging To Telangana: Asks Andhra HC [Read Judgment]

According to some, unless the DNA of the judges indicate their ancestry to Telangana, they are not to be considered as belonging to Telangana, the bench said.

A division bench of Andhra High Court, while considering a PIL, observed that several judges of the high court were born and brought up in Hyderabad, but some people do not consider them as belonging to the state of Telangana, for the simple reason that their forefathers hailed from areas which now form part of the bifurcated State of Andhra Pradesh.

This observation was made by a bench comprising Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice J Umadevi, while considering an allegation in a PIL filed by a senior advocate, that there are only four judges who belong to the state of Telangana in the Andhra High Court.

The court also said that some think that “unless the DNA of the Judges indicate their ancestry to Telangana, they are not to be considered as belonging to Telangana, despite their birth, growth and assimilation into the city of Hyderabad for decades”.

The court observed that this opinion stands in contrast to the Presidential Orders issued in exercise of the power conferred by Article 371 D of the Constitution, which allow persons who are domiciles of a particular area to claim the benefit of the reservation for local candidates.

In other words, it is the firm conviction of a few, that persons aspiring to get elevated to the High Court either from the bar or from the service, cannot even have the benefit that may be available to other people under the Presidential Orders issued in terms of Article 371 D of the Constitution, the bench said.

The court further remarked: “We are conscious of the fact that as and when the exercise of filling up of the vacancies is undertaken, many obstacles may be posed on grounds of nativity, ancestry, origin etc., (apart from the usual obstacles that every other High Court normally faces) on the basis of the aforesaid divisions. It is very likely that this court may face an uphill task while recommending names for elevation.”

Read the Judgment here.