RTC Strike: Congress Asks Bureaucrats Not To Mislead High Co

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy has advised the State government officials to restrain from violating the law in the issue of the strike by the TSRTC employees.

Reddy alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was forcing senior bureaucrats and other officials to mislead the High Court in details pertaining to the TSRTC.

He said that it was at the Chief Minister's instance that the officials presented selected statistics before the High Court and concealed the figures of money the government owed the Road Transport Corporation.

He said that KCR had already prepared his mind to privatize the RTC so as to take control over its assets worth thousands of crores, and was therefore willingly disobeying the directives of the High Court.

Unfortunately, many senior officials, deliberately or unknowingly, were supporting the Chief Minister in the latter's violation of the law, Reddy claimed.

The Congress leader warned that the High Court could initiate contempt of court proceedings if the officials continued to mislead it or furnish incorrect and incomplete information. And since the State was run by the executive, the Chief Secretary and other bureaucrats would face the action and not the Chief Minister. He said that there were many instances wherein the courts had punished the senior officials for contempt when their orders were disobeyed. Therefore, the bureaucrats should follow the rules and act as per the law instead of protecting the political and commercial interests of KCR, Reddy said.

He added it was the duty of IAS officers to act as per the law and not interpret the rules to suit the political requirement of the incumbent Chief Minister.

Getting lofty, Reddy then said that the legal battle over the RTC strike was no more confined to the lives of the 50,000 employees or even the very survival of the corporation. He said that the fight for the RTC was now directly linked with the survival of democracy and the restoration of the Constitution in Telangana. He expressed fear that democracy itself would be in serious danger if the RTC employees lost the battle for their rights.

He said that the officials should submit the correct details by October 31, as directed by the High Court, and act as representatives of the Constitution instead of of the Chief Minister when the hearing resumed on November 1.