Review plea filed before SC against declaring Hyderabad as free zone

New Delhi, Nov 12: The Rosaiah Government on Thursday filed a review petition before the Supreme Court challenging the earlier order of the apex court declaring Hyderabad as a free zone for police recruitments.In the review petition, the State Government mentioned that there was no term called ‘free zone’ in the Presidential Order. The filing of the review petition followed the Chief Minister, Mr K Rosaiah’s eliciting opinion of legal experts after an all-party meeting.It all started after the then Rajasekhara Reddy government repatriated non-Telanganites to their respective districts under the GO 610 which pronounced that Hyderabad city comes under sixth zone and thus only those belonging to Telangana region were eligible to work in Hyderabad.

Following this, the non-Telanganite employees moved the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and later the Andhra Pradesh High Court challenging the government’s order.As both the CAT and the High Court dismissed the employees’ plea, they later knocked at the doors of the Supreme Court which on October 9 declared Hyderabad as free zone. The apex court pronounced that anyone can get employment in Hyderabad city and can continue to work in the capital city.This has come as a weapon for the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the party president, Mr K Chandrasekhar Rao, who announced his decision to launch a militant struggle till the State Government passed an order declaring Hyderabad as the sixth zone. As the issue is threatening to take a serious turn, the Chief Minister, Mr K Rosaiah, has convened a meeting on October 19 where the TRS leaders walked out of the meeting.

The TRS president blamed the State Government for thins coming to this pass and alleged that the Government had hired a Gujarat-based advocate to argue the case in the court with a "mala fide intention to misguide the court by misrepresenting the facts." He also criticised the Rosaiah Administration for not implementing the GO 610, meant to repatriate non-Telangana employees from Hyderabad.Following this, the Chief Minister also elicited the opinion the legal experts who opined that there were sufficient grounds for filing the review petition and it was decided to request the additional Solicitor General to appear on behalf of the State Government.
Against this backdrop the State Government filed the review petition before the Supreme Court which is stated to have posted the case to the bench headed by Justice Bala Krishnan and also adjourned the case to next week for further hearing.