Judges in Telangana have launched a protest and threatened mass resignation.
Highlights
- Telangana objects to judges from Andhra Pradesh
- 100 judges in Telangana go on mass leave
- Telangana says Andhra using its judges to interfere with administration
More than 200 judges in Telangana have gone on leave together today in a rapidly-escalating confrontation with neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.
Supported by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao or KCR, as he is popularly referred to, the judges say that vacancies in courts are being filled with Andhra judges in what amounts to a hostile takeover of Telangana's court-rooms and an attempt to influence politics and the administration of India's youngest state.
In 2014, Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh as its own state. Since then, the neighbours have regularly hurled darts at each other over how to share water, land and property in the rich IT hub of Hyderabad, which is assigned as a shared capital a decade, after which it will belong to Telangana.
KCR's daughter, parliamentarian K Kavitha, told NDTV today that instead of being assigned to courts in Andhra, judges from across the border are choosing posts in Telangana to further the practice of bureaucrats and police officers being "wilfully punished, harassed" as the Andhra government tries to control the policies of Telangana.
The Hyderabad High Court must be urgently bifurcated, she said, a move that her father has "spoken about to the PM 10 times". She alleged that the Centre is siding with Andhra Pradesh because it is allied with its chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu.
Over the weekend, nearly 130 judges from Telangana marched in Hyderabad in protest; over the last 24 hours, 11 of them have been suspended.
Union Law Minister Sadananda Gowda said that by threatening a demonstration in person in Delhi, KCR is "behaving like Kejriwal", a reference to the Delhi Chief Minister who is famous for street protests to make his point.