Only 13.5% Telangana staff in judiciary

By S A Ishaqui

Hyderabad, Dec 17: The Telangana judiciary will face a huge staff crunch after bifurcation because of the historically lower recruitment in the region.

According to the bifurcation Bill, the strength of the Telangana and the residuary state judiciary will be finalised based on population. This means the Telangana judiciary will get 42 per cent of the total jobs.

Statistics show that Telangana has only 13.5 per cent jobs in the High Court (see table), the rest going to Seemandhra.

The strength of the AP High Court judges is 49 while the present strength is 36, including the Chief Justice. Of these, six are from Telangana. After setting up the new High Court for Telangana, 19 to 21 judges will be required as per the population ratio.

The Bill indicates that employees who are about retire in two years after bifurcation will be given the option to continue in the state capital as it will be the common capital for 10 years.

According to sources, if the government continues with excess staff from Seemandhra after bifurcation, it would not only lead to litigation but also to unrest among judicial staff.

Telangana judicial officers were of the opinion that the proposal would hamper their employment opportunities as they were already deprived of their legitimate share of jobs.

Purushotham Reddy, president of the Telangana Employees Association of the High Court said, “A lot of injustice was done in recruitment and we will not tolerate this any longer.

We are actually eligible for 80 per cent but our strength is even less than the non-local quota. We are being treated as second class citizens.”