AP govt questioned over giving clean chit to Diwakar Travels

​Hyderabad: The High Court at Hyderabad questioned the Andhra Pradesh State and its authorities over giving a clean chit to Diwakar Travels, whose bus plunged into Krishna river, killing 11 persons in February.

It also expressed the opinion that the bus operators are creating havoc because the authorities are not implementing the Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961, and this situation is leading to such accidents.

The division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice T Rajani posed this question and made these observations while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed by advocate K.V. Subba Reddy, seeking implementation of the Act by the two governments.

During the previous hearing the court had directed the two governments to file affidavits in this regard, in particular about the accident of Diwakar Travels bus in Krishna district. This bus and the travel firm belongs to AP's Anantapur MP J C Diwakar Reddy's family.

While the Telangana government submitted to the court that Diwakar Travels bus was not registered in the State under the Act despite it is functioning from Hyderabad and that it found many lacuna in the Travels in the implementation of the Act, the Andhra Pradesh government in its affidavit gave a clean chit, stating there were no irregularities committed by Diwakar Travels. When this was pointed out to the bench by the counsel for the petitioner P V A Padmanabham, the bench remarked that one of the two governments has to be wrong in this regard.

Advocate General of Andhra Pradesh Dammalapati Srinivas admitted that there appeared to be problem in the affidavit filed in this regard and sought three weeks time to file a detailed affidavit. The bench posted the matter to three weeks and refused to dispense with the presence of Special Chief Secretary Neerabh before the court again on the next date of hearing.