Telangana judicial officers end strike, return to work on Wednesday

Hyderabad: Members of the Telangana Judges Association, who went on a mass leave last month in protest against suspension of 11 judges of the lower courts in the state, have decided to resume duty on Wednesday. Around 200 judicial officers, working in various capacities in courts across the state, went on mass leave on 28 June amid the agitation against appointment of judges from Andhra Pradesh to the Telangana courts. The Hyderabad High Court — which is common for AP and Telangana — had suspended 11 judges on disciplinary grounds for taking part in the agitation over allocation of judges. “The extraordinary general body meeting of Telangana Judges Association here today decided to call off the mass leave protest in view of appeals made by the Chief Justice of India, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Governor and the Acting Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad,” a judicial officer told PTI. [caption id=“attachment_2876236” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. News 18[/caption] When asked about the demand of revocation of suspension of 11 judges, he said, “The acting Chief Justice (of High Court) will take care of it. It takes its own time … there is a process for that.” “The CJI, Governor and acting Chief Justice advised us not to continue with the protest. The acting Chief Justice is already seized of the issue of provisional list (of allocation of judges) and he assured us to look into the matter….(so) we decided to call off the mass leave protest,” he said. The members of TJA went on mass leave on 28 June to protest suspension of 11 judges by the HC. On June 26, over 100 judges under the banner of Telangana Judges Association had taken out a procession and submitted a representation to the Governor, protesting allotment of judges who hail from Andhra Pradesh to the subordinate courts in Telangana. This led to HC’s action of suspending 11 judges. Federation of Bar Associations of Telangana’s president G Jithender Reddy told PTI on Tuesday that the agitation will continue. “The Federation is going to conduct a meeting at Warangal after Ramzan to discuss future course of action,” he said. The TJA members had not informed the Federation about today’s meeting, he said. Telangana Advocates Joint Action Committee’s co-convener T Sri Rangarao told PTI that it too would call an extra-ordinary general body meeting in a day or two to chalk out the future course of action.