SC to examine PILs on Telangana agitation

New Delhi, Nov 7: The Supreme Court will examine a batch of PILs challenging the ongoing separate Telangana state agitation in Andhra Pradesh, where normal life has been ''paralysed'' and over 500 cases of ''suicide'' have been reported.

A bench of justices G S Singhvi and Ranjana Prakash Desai asked petitioner P V Krishnaiah to furnish details of all the three PILs filed by him on the issue so that "if necessary" they could be tagged together for appropriate consideration.

Krishnaiah, who is an advocate, has urged the apex court to restrain the Centre from taking any step for carving out a separate state and has sought an appropriate direction to the authorities to ensure that general public was not put to any inconvenience on account of the year-long agitation.

According to the petitioner, apart from normal life being paralysed, courts except the state high court were also not functioning properly due to the agitation and that many government employees, including police personnel, had joined the stir.

The PILs submitted that the agitation in the form of ''rasta roko'', ''rail roko'' and disruption of work at the public sector Singareni Collieries Limited besides causing colossal loss of public money and loss of power supply violated Fundamental Rights of the citizens under Articles 14 (Equality) and 21 (Liberty) of the Constitution.

"Because of non-production of sufficient power, not only the Government has imposed power cuts in the entire city (of Hyderabad), but also imposed power cuts in other districts as well as to the farmers," the petition said.
PTI