The writ petition challenging hike in fees of medical post-graduate courses took a turn on Monday with a bench of Telangana High Court Justices M.S. Ramachandra Rao and K. Lakshman recusing itself from hearing it.
The petition was placed before the Chief Justice for adjudication. Observing that people and lawyers of Telangana State were well aware of its credibility and conduct, the bench gave a point-wise rebuttal of the allegations made by Telangana Admission and Fee Regulation Committee (TAFRC) chairman Justice P. Swaroop Reddy in the order.
The TAFRC chairman filed a memo before the bench on Friday seeking to list the petition before any other bench of the High Court. He cited a slew of reasons for his request. In the memo, he said that judging from a series of circumstances he was of the opinion that Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao ‘is highly prejudiced against Telangana State, Telangana people and particularly TAFRC’.
He maintained the petition was posted before a single judge. He further stated that he was informed that the petition got again posted before the bench comprising Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao though the subject was related to fee hike and had nothing to do with medical admissions.
In the order on Monday, the bench explained that it had sought a copy of the detailed reasons based on which TAFRC recommended the fee hike when the petition came up for hearing on Thursday. The TAFRC counsel gave undertaking to file it by next day.
On Friday morning, however, he forwarded only a copy of the table of fees to the bench around 10.15 a.m. and eventually sought adjournment of the hearing. Around noon, it was brought to the notice of the bench that TAFRC chairman filed a memo. “It is obvious that the memo was prepared long before 10.30 a.m. on Friday and was pressed into service conveniently to avoid furnishing information sought by the bench and avoid hearing of the matter before this bench,” the order said.
