When will you appoint Admin member in Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal, High Court asks AP govt

Hyderabad: The High Court at Hyderabad has directed the Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary to inform it by June 27th as to when the Administrative Member of Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal (APAT) would be appointed.

The division bench comprising of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice J Uma Devi gave this direction on Thursday while hearing two Writ petitions challenging the Memo issued by AP Engineer in Chief and Principal Secretary Irrigation Department relating to promotions and seniority of Engineers in the department.

The bench questioned the counsel for the petitioners, P V Krishnaiah as to why they were approaching the High Court when there was an alternative remedy in the APAT. Krishnaiah informed the bench that there was only one Judicial member and a Chairman in APAT and without the Administrative member in place, it cannot be perceived as APAT. Therefore, they were forced to approach the High Court.

The bench questioned the Government Pleader as to why Administrative member was not appointed. If the Government wanted, it can scrap the Tribunal like the Telangana Government had done. It directed the AP Government to inform it by the next date of hearing on June 27th as to by when the Administrative member would be appointed to the APAT and adjourned the case.