On Wednesday, the High Court of Andhra Pradesh witnessed heated exchanges between Justice Rakesh Kumar & State Govt counsels during hearing on a few habeas corpus petitions with the Judge commenting that he was "threatened" at the last sitting & the latter strongly objecting to the same.
The hearing resumed in the backdrop of the Govt's affidavit wherein it has requested that the senior Judge recuse himself, perceiving in his observations strong bias against it.
The Govt request came after the division bench comprising Justice Rakesh Kumar & Justice Uma Devi had earlier declared that it would examine if there was a constitutional breakdown in the State as part of the hearings on the habeas corpus petitions.
The bench had also rejected Govt objections to its decision & refused to defer hearing - as sought by the Govt to give it time to file a plea in the Apex Court. Thursday’s hearing resumed against this background.
When Justice Rakesh Kumar said he was "threatened" during the last hearing, the Govt’s special Advocate Satyanarayana Prasad & Lawyer YS Vivekananda questioned how could a request to defer the hearing be construed as a threat. To this, the Judge clarified that he didn’t mean it.
However, Satyanarayana Prasad, while strongly objecting, submitted that Advocate General S Sriram was not even given an opportunity last Monday to present his arguments or cite relevant judgements and, mincing no words, said that the Advocate General wasn’t given the respect due to him.
He further argued that judges cannot make off the cuff remarks or issue oral orders. "It is not legally acceptable & the same was clarified by the Supreme Court several times," he said & added that the Govt must be given the opportunity to file a counter in the case & present its arguments.
He informed the bench that the Govt would move the Apex Court against the HC decision to examine the question of constitutional breakdown in the State & requested that hearing be deferred to enable the government file an appeal in the Supreme Court. However, the bench rejected the request, & pointed out that there was no stay order from the Top Court till now & hence, the hearing would be continued.
Prasad argued that the HC was taking up issues, which are not raised in the pleas, suo motu. As Prasad had to appear for another hearing in the High Court of Telangana, the bench deferred the hearing for the time he was away.
'Government advocate obstructing court proceedings'
Taking a serious view of Prasad’s repeated requests for deferring the hearing, the bench recorded in its official records that hewas obstructing the court proceedings. Later, the hearing was deferred to Thursday
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