Telangana for Telangana judges, chant striking lawyers

“We won’t allow any Andhra judge to opt for a posting in Telangana. Telangana is for Telangana judges,” chanted a women advocate near Hyderabad High Court, the designated joint High Court for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Such scenes are now routine outside courtrooms in Hyderabad.

 All Telangana advocates, who have been abstaining from the courts for a week, today gave a call to lay siege on the High Court complex demanding that the faulty ‘pro-Andhra’ division of judicial officers between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana be revoked.

Roads leading up to High Court resembled a war zone since morning today. Many advocates, who tried to enter the compound, have been taken into custody.

We won’t accept this. The filling of Telangana courts with Andhra Judges will defeat the very purpose fighting for statehood for Telangana

A huge posse of policemen has been, sealing all roads within a kilometre radius of the court.

Police only allowed advocates of Andhra origin after verifying the cause list. Advocates from all the districts of Telangana arrived in Hyderabad to participate in the protests.

As part of the division of judicial officers between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana , a provisional list of judges allocated for the two successor states has been released. But, the list of judges allocated for Telangana has a preponderance of Andhraites, the protesting lawyers allege.

Instead of dividing the judicial officers based on nativity, the committee overseeing the division have left it to the judges to make the choice of location, claimed the lawyers.

“We won’t accept this. The filling of Telangana courts with Andhra Judges will defeat the very purpose fighting for statehood for Telangana. We are opposed to the continued dominance of Andhra in Telangana courts,” said B Ashokvardhan Reddy, a senior Hyderabad advocate told Asianet Newsable.

Out of the 24 judges in the High Court, only four are from Telangana, about five from other states of India and 15 from Andhra.

City civil courts advocates’ association president, Lakka Raju Hari Rao also made it clear that the provision list should be revoked.

"Even though there are vacancies for district judges in Andhra Pradesh, the committee constituted to divide them between the two states, allotted Andhra officers to Telangana as per their wish. This is a double whammy for Telangana. One, some of these judges will soon be promoted as High Court Judges. Two, Telangana can’t recruit district judges as the vacancies are now filled with Andhra judges." 

According to Rao, about 132 judges from all categories had opted for Telangana. We want the allocation of the judicial officers taken up on the basis of domicile status and not according to the judges' wishes," he said.