HC reserves order on PIL challenging appointment of 6 TSPSC members

Telangana High Court reserved orders on the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the appointment of the six Members to the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC)

The PIL was filed by a retired Professor A.Vinayak Reddy, Kakatiya University, questioning the appointment of Ramavath Dhan Singh, Prof. Badi Linga Reddy, Sumithra Anand Tanoba, Dr. Aravilli Chandra Sekhar Rao, R. Satyanarayana, and Karam Ravinder Reddy as members of TSPSC.

After hearing the arguments, the division bench of Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice CV Bhaskar Reddy reserved the orders.

The petitioner alleged that the Telangana government has appointed six Members to TSPSC in violation of Regulation 3(2)(a) and 3(2)(b) of TSPSC regulations.

Regulation 3(1) says that all the members appointed to TSPSC should be eminent persons possessing a high degree of caliber, competence, and integrity.

Regulation 3(2)(a) says that one-half of the members shall be those who have served as officers of All India Services, Central Services, or State Civil Services, and Regulation, 3(2)(b) says the remaining members shall be from among eminent people with a background of Academics/ Management/ Law/ Science & Technology/ Social Science, etc., whereas the six members, who are appointed as members, do not possess any of the quality or qualification cited.

Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan asked about the recruitment criteria for the appointment of TSPSC members. "Something must be there. There must be some consensus for the appointment," CJ said.

"It seems you are all well acquainted with the people in power," CJ said.

Chief Justice said the States Public Service Commissions have search committees for the appointments. "Why didn't the State appointed search committee fill the TSPSC members vacancy? There must be some consensus to fill the vacancies," he said.

During an earlier round of hearings, the Bench asked Advocate General Banda Shivananda Prasad to furnish the entire record about the appointment of 6 members to the TSPSC.

The court wanted to know whether any selection process was followed in appointing the members.

Though such a record was furnished, the court was not satisfied.