RBKs, village secretariats in govt schools: 7 babus appear before Andhra Pradesh High Court

Amaravati: Tuesday again saw several bureaucrats appearing before the AP High Court in cases related to Rythu Bharosa Kendras and other cases related to construction of secretariats in school premises.

The High Court ordered complete shifting of the RBKs and village secretariats from the school premises in the State in four weeks hence.

It may be recalled that the High Court has registered a suo motu case against the officials for not complying with its order against the construction of Rythu Bharosa Kendras (RBKs) and village secretariats on the premises of government schools.

Justice B Devanand had observed in the past, while hearing the case, that such facilities on school premises would disturb the peaceful environment required by students and wondered if they knew the consequences of their inaction in the matter.

Justice Devanand had ordered that RBKs, offices of Panchayat Raj & Rural Development Department and other such government buildings should not be constructed on the premises of schools, while hearing a petition that challenged one such move at a government school in Kurnool district before posting the case to Tuesday for further hearing.

As a consequence, seven IAS officers appeared in person on Tuesday for the hearing. The court has directed Panchayat Raj Principal Secretary Gopalakrishna Dwivedi, its Commissioner Girija Shankar, Principal Secretary of the Education Department B Rajasekhar, Commissioner of the School Education V Chinaveerabhadrudu, Principal Secretary of Water Resources Shyamal Rao, former Municipal Administration Principal Secretary, Vijayakumar and M M Nayak to furnish a comprehensive report on the goings on in this regard.

The government submitted to the High Court in its report that the RBKs and village secretariats had been constructed at 1,160 places. Out of these, 450 would now being shifted out of the school premises, it said.

The High Court directed the State government to shift the others also from school premises within four weeks and posted the next hearing to October 1.

This is not the first time that the bureaucrats are hauled through the coals by the Judiciary for either not appearing in person when summoned or for providing inadequate information in its submissions and reports when sought by the High Court.

The High Court had to repeatedly pull up the then Chief Secretary in the case filed by the then State Election Commission. The IAS and IPS officers have also appeared in contempt cases.

In another case, Principal Secretary (Home) Kumar Vishwajeet, DGP Gautam Sawang and IG Mahesh Chandra Laddha had to appear before the court in person, in a case filed by one V Rama Rao on his promotion issue.

The judge had observed that it was painful to summon the DGP to appear before the court thus. Later, he exempted the three officials from personal appearance.