From Court Rooms To Streets, Telangana Judges March For Justice In Hyderabad

Hyderabad: On Sunday, 130 judges in Telangana found themselves on the flipside of the judicial system as they marched the streets of Hyderabad in unison, demanding justice first for themselves.

Junior and senior civil judges and district judges from across 10 districts held a protest march through the city and threatened a mass resignation. They demand that appointments of 200 Andhra Pradesh judges in Telangana's judiciary last month be scrapped and called it a 'stepmotherly treatment' in a letter to the President of Telangana Judges Association, K Ravinder Reddy.

The protesting judges first met at a city hotel, where they handed over their resignations to their federation president and marched to Amaraveerula Stupam, a Telangana martyrs memorial. From there, they set off to Raj Bhavan to meet Governor ESL Narasimhan.

"They kept no vacancy in all cadres of Telangana while keeping vacancies in Andhra Pradesh. Youngest Direct Recruit Officers from Andhra Pradesh were intentionally allocated to Telangana to deprive the promotional prospects of Telangana judges, to rule Telangana judiciary and to protect their men and property. We are also afraid of their future intervention in political and executive administration of Telangana,'' said the judges association in a strongly-worded letter.

The letter further said, "We feel we are working under the High Court of Andhra Pradesh and not under the High Court of both states,'' said the strongly worded letter. "So we unanimously resolved not to approach the High Court for redressal on judicial side, orally, as majority in High Court are with biased attitude towards our issue."

"We cannot work under Andhra judicial rulers, in future,'' it added.

Quoting CCA rules and code of conduct, the judges however refused to speak to the media.

In the last three weeks, advocates and judicial officers have been on strike and the subordinate courts in the state have not functioned since June 6. Even the High Court work was blocked on June 13 after a token boycott by its judges.

The high court registrar had taken a serious view of these disruptions and had written to the government, which in turn, issued instructions on June 22, directing that specific security measures are to be put in place to ensure there is no disruption in the court proceedings.

The Bar Council of Andhra Pradesh has also written to the union minister Mr Kiren Rijiju, seeking his intervention to expedite the process of bifurcation of the High Court and set aside what they called the 'illegal exercise of option' followed for allocation of judicial officers in Telangana.

The letter points out that the Andhra Pradesh government was directed by the High Court in May last year to identify location for a permanent high court and administrative and residential quarters for judges within six months. It also said pointed out that the allocation of judicial officers was to happen according to certain guidelines specified by the court in February last year.

The Bar Council has requested the minister to summon chief ministers of both states to sort out the issue.