Retired judge of Supreme Court Justice Sudershan Reddy said Indian Constitution never prescribed “consensus” as a criterion for division of States. Similarly, there was no mention of permission of political parties or the unanimous opinion of people of all regions as pre-requisite for division of any state in the country.
Speaking at Telangana Commercial Taxes Gazetted Officers’ Association on ‘Constitutional aspects of Telangana statehood and role of political parties,” he opined that the Union Government’s argument that it had put on hold a decision to bifurcate the State as there was no consensus, was nothing but a treachery on the Constitution.
“Upon President’s recommendation, the bill for division of any state can be tabled in the Parliament. Then the same would be sent to the State Assembly only to seek the ‘views’.
The Constitution of India states these two conditions must be fulfilled for re-organisation of any state and nothing else,” he said. “For a practitioner of law with over 40 years experience, I never came across any word as ‘consensus’ in our Constitution,” Justice Sudershan Reddy said.
Hyderabad had become a bone of contention, but if all the details about who had taken possession of all the government lands in and around Hyderabad and people of which region had benefitted from it was made public, everything would become crystal clear, he said, and urged the Telangana protagonists to focus more on it and question the administrators.
Justice Reddy opined that whole of Telangana community was on one side and the politicians of the region were on the opposite side.
“Social boycott of politicians, working against people’s aspirations, is the need of the hour. People expressed their opinion in a democratic way through meetings, seminars, strikes and rallies. Social boycott should be the next shift in the movement,” he stated.
The Telangana Commercial Taxes Employee leaders T Vivek, Aruna, Prabhakar, S Venkateshwarulu, R Krishna Murthy among others also spoke on the occasion. [Hans India]