New Delhi: The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to approach the Supreme Court against the high court’s order seeking to examine whether there is a “constitutional breakdown of machinery” in the state. A division bench of the AP high court comprising Justice Rakesh Kumar has rejected the state’s plea to recall the earlier order.
According to LiveLaw, state Advocate General Subrahmanyam Sriram had expressed displeasure that the high court did not hear his arguments before rejecting the plea. He added that he had prepared precedents to cite, but the court did not give him time to make his submissions.
The case pertains to an Andhra Pradesh high court order from October 1, when Justice Uma Devi converted the hearings on a batch of habeas corpus petitions and pleas alleging police excess into a hearing on whether there is a “constitutional breakdown” in Andhra Pradesh, LiveLaw reported. The government’s counsel had been asked to make submissions on this, and whether the court can record such a finding, “in light of the circumstances that are prevailing in the State of Andhra Pradesh”.
The state government then asked for that order to be recalled, saying none of the original applications had asked that question. The court on Monday (December 14) rejected the recall plea, saying,
“On 1/10/2020 when the present PIL was taken up with other 16 cases the Court noted that on a number of occasions there was “illegal picking up of persons by police” and after filing habeas corpus either they were being remanded or released.
The Court had summoned the DGP who gave assurance that instructions will be given to the Police personnel to follow all the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in DK Basu case and other amendments that followed the pronouncement.
Though assurance was given by the DGP, rampantly such excesses by police were going on and this court also noticed that after passing the judicial order, the High Court was attacked on social media by number of persons including one member of Parliament belonging to the party in power…
This court had asked that State counsel may come prepared on the point as too whether in the circumstances which are prevailing, court can record a finding whether there is Constitutional breakdown.
The State counsel participated on number of days in present proceedings, even thereafter no objection was raised and now the present IA is filed with prayer to recall the earlier order (dated October 1).
This Court is of the view that if a party is aggrieved by an order of the court, it cannot be allowed to question the same before the same court. There was no embargo on the State to approach the superior court, but they continued to appear before us only with a view to drag the matter. Therefore, we reject the present application for recall.”