HC seeks info on fees in tech colleges

By S A Ishaqui
Hyderabad,July 20: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday issued a notice to the state government seeking its version of the recently fixed fee structure for undergraduate engineering courses including pharmacy and architecture.
The court was dealing with a batch of petitions filed by managements of private engineering colleges against the government fixing the fee structure. The petitioners sought a direction to declare the fee structure as illegal and urged the court to direct the government to consider a proposal submitted by them to hike fees in undergraduate engineering courses.
While posting the petitions for further hearing, Justice G. Rohini made it clear that fees collected by private unaided institutions as prescribed by the government would be subject to further orders in a batch of writ petitions.
The government fixed Rs 30,200 for undergraduate engineering course for a student of category A seats and Rs 91,700 for category B seat per annum as tuition fee. For MBA and MCA courses, under category ‘A’ the fee was Rs 26,700 and for category ‘B’, it was Rs 73,100. The petitioners told the court that they had asked the government to fix Rs 1,28,568 for all engineering courses.

Ramoji asks for exemption

Media baron, Mr Ch. Ramoji Rao on Monday approached the Andhra Pradesh High Court seeking a direction to quash the orders passed by a lower court for his personal appearance in the Margadarsi financiers case.
The first additional chief metropolitan magistrate of the city criminal court had on July 13 refused to dispense with the personal appearance of Mr Ramoji Rao in the case.
Mr Ramoji Rao, appeared before the court on June 25 in the case and filed a petition seeking dispensation from personal appearance on July 1. Aggrieved by the lower court’s order, Mr Rao filed the quash petitions seeking an interim plea to dispense with his personal appearance and permit him to be represented by special vakalat holder on his behalf.

Stay on Vambay flat allotments

Justice Goda Raghuram of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday directed the authorities concerned not to allot about 13 flats under the Vambay Housing Scheme at Shalivahananagar in the city.
The judge was dealing with a petition filed by 13 former allotees who now claimed that they were victims of local political activity and that they were being denied facilities under the scheme, They told the court that they were earlier identified as eligible.
When counsel for the state government defended the action of the government stating that those excluded were not residing in the area now, the judge pointed out: “Even constitutional authorities change houses. How can the petitioners who were found eligible earlier be disqualified now?” The court granted two weeks time to the authorities to respond.

Court unhappy with tahsildars

The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday expressed its displeasure over unilateral decisions taken by some tahsildars in the state.
Justice Goda Raghuram, while dealing with a petition filed by one Mr S. Raghava Rao and two others from Nuzvid in Krishna district, remarked: “Law is immaterial for the lawless, but it is not so for the rule-bound official. However, certain tahsildars in the state are blatantly violating the law.”
The petitioners complained to the court that the Nuzvid tahsildar acquired 2.25 acres of land belonging to them without any notice in 2007. The judge expressed his anger and said: “If the higher authorities take stringent action against such erring official, it will serve as a lesson for others to follow the law.”
The judge directed the revenue department to inform the court on what action will be taken against the tahsildar by July 27.

AP files plea on CAT order

The state government on Monday appealed to the AP High Court against the orders of the Central Administrative Tribunal with regard to ex-cadre posts of IAS officers in the state. The CAT had earlier directed the state government to scrap all the ex-cadre posts which were created illegally within four months. The CAT gave the order in March after a senior IAS officer, Mr Shafiquzzaman, ap-proached the tribunal against creating ex-cadre posts. However, the state approached the HC challenging the order saying that there are practical difficulties in implementing the orders and contended the order was illegal. The HC posted the matter to Wednesday.