Judges see trap, take back land request

By Shariff Ameeruddin Ishaqui
Hyderabad, July 9: Judges of the Andhra Pradesh High Court have unanimously decided to withdraw their request for house sites made in 2004 to the state government.
The general body of the Mutually Aided Co-operative Housing Society of Judges of the AP High Court also requested the government to withdraw GO Ms No 42 issued on March 23 this year for allotment of land to the society.
The general body took the decision on Wednesday which was communicated to the government. The judges had made a representation through the society on March 15, 2004, to the government with a request to allot land at reasonable rates.
According to the sources, majority of the judges opined that had there been any genuine intention on the part of the government to address their problems, it could have adopted a non-controversial approach to the mater.
They felt the request made by the society appeared to have been used for the “dual purpose” of clearing allotment of huge extents of land to other sections, and grouping them along with the judges’ request.
The meeting opined that it was an attempt to push the institution of judiciary into a vulnerable situation. The meeting saw it as “almost a trap, laid and fabricated by intelligent brains.”
“The option before us is either to inadvertently walk in to the trap and to struggle in vain to come out of it,” the meeting resolved, or to call the bluff of those who laid the trap.
The society clarified that it cannot “permit the attempts of anyone, whether open or camouflaged, to damage the reputation of the institution.”