TRS MPs Stall Parliament On High Court Bifurcation

TRS MPs today created pandemonium during the Parliament Lok Sabha session demanding that the Centre take immediate steps for bifurcation of the Hyderabad High Court between the two Telugu-speaking states.

The TRS moved an adjournment motion early in the day, and its MPs displayed placards seeking bifurcation of the High Court. The furious MPs also stormed the well and shouted "We want High Court" slogans.

TRS floor leader in the Lok Sabha Jithender Reddy raised the issue asking why the Centre had failed to take a decision on the High Court despite Section 31 of the A P Reorganization Act providing for bifurcation of the court. Though three-and-a-half years had passed since the state's bifurcation, the Centre was deliberately delaying the decision on the division of the High Court, he fumed.

Nizamabad MP Kavitha also demanded that the Centre announce its decision on the issue without any further delay. She said that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had also written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of the bifurcation of the High Court, but to no avail.

Responding to the MPs' demand for a time-bound decision, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that he would respond on the matter on December 28.

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar, too, agreed that there was a need to separate the high court as all the other new states had been granted their own high courts, and said that he, too, would talk to the Law Minister in this regard.

Calling it a "key issue", he assured the MPs that the Centre would soon take a decision on the matter.

The TRS MPs promised to continue raising the issue in the House till the Centre initiated steps for the bifurcation.