High Court Slams Advocate General Over Water Row

A judge of the Telangana High Court, Justice M S Ramachandra Rao, yesterday expressed displeasure at Advocate General B S Prasad for urging him to recuse himself from hearing a case on the sharing of the Krishna's waters and of hydro-electric power generation in the river basin.

Justice Rao pulled up the AG severely for the plea, and alleged that the Telangana government's plea for the recusal was but a form of "bench hunting". Calling the plea "unjustified" and "in poor taste", he also told the AG that it was objectionable that the latter had made the recusal plea without justifying the cause for the demand.

The case in question was a petition filed by two farmers from Andhra Pradesh over Telangana's use of Srisailam waters to produce electricity. The farmers had filed the petition against the government for issuing GO 34 in favour of power generation by a few farmers in Andhra Pradesh's Krishna district. They had appealed that the GO be stayed and that power generation in the Krishna basin be stopped.

At this, the AG had filed a petition asking that Chief Justice Hima Kohli constitute a bench to hear the matter. Irked by this, Justice Rao retorted, "We have been hearing cases related to the water row at the instruction of the CJ. However, the AG should withdraw the petition entirely if he has no trust in us. It is unfortunate that the AG's office is making such appeals. Benches hear cases on the basis of a roster. The court has no personal interest in the cases."

The anger of the judge prompted Prasad to withdraw his interim petition on the issue.