Supreme Court to hear PILs on Telangana issue

The Supreme Court today decided to hear a petition seeking laying down of guidelines for exercising powers by the government to go into the contentious issue of carving out the separate state of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh.

The apex court allowed the plea for deleting the prayer in the petition challenging the validity of the government action appointing the justice BN Srikrishna Commission to look into the creation of new Telangana state.

A bench comprising chief justice KG Balakrishnan and justices Deepak Verma and justice BS Chauhan posted the PIL for hearing after four weeks in which it has been contended that no constitutional power can be exercised arbitrarily and at will without there being any guidelines or basis.

"Power under Article 3 and 4 is the solemn constitutional power and it is obvious that no constitutional power can be exercised arbitrarily and at the will without there being a fundamental constitutional paradigm or basis to the exercise of power," the petitition filed by K Srinivas Reddy said.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the petitioner, said the manner in which the entire matter relating to creation of a new state was being dealt with proved that there was no established principle for the government to act on such issues.

He also sought a declaration that the re-organisation of states could be either on the basis of the linguistic affinity, administrative convenience or other similar grounds.