New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday decided to hear the Andhra Pradesh government's plea for equitable and expeditious division of assets between itself and Telangana in the second week of January, on being told that it has not been done even after eight years of bifurcation of the two states in June 2014.
A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and M M Sundresh asked the Andhra Pradesh government to serve an advance copy of the petition to Telangana. “There are similar petitions pending. You serve the copy to the respondents,” the bench said.
At the outset, the counsel for Andhra Pradesh government submitted that an extraordinary situation has arisen and the matter should be resolved. He said Andhra has approached the top court as “parens patriae” (parent of the nation), claiming that a non-division of the assets has benefitted Telangana since about 91 per cent of those are situated in Hyderabad.
“Non-apportionment of the assets has led to a multitude of issues adversely affecting and violating the fundamental and other constitutional rights of the people of the state of Andhra Pradesh, including the employees of the said institutions.
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“Without adequate funding and actual division of assets in terms of the apportionment made under the Act (the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014), the functioning of the said institutions in Andhra Pradesh has been severely stunted,” the plea said.
Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated and a new state of Telangana came into existence on June 2, 2014.
The petition said the employees working in the state institutions (numbering approximately 1,59,096) have been in a limbo since 2014, solely because there has been no proper division.
“The situation of pensionable employees who retired after bifurcation is pitiable and many of them have not received terminal benefits. It is therefore imperative that all these assets be divided at the earliest and a quietus be put to the issue,” it said.
"Hyderabad (which is now a part of Telangana) was the capital of the combined state of Andhra Pradesh. Hyderabad was not only transformed into an economic powerhouse as a result of the 'Capital Centric Development Model' but also, most of the institutions of governance (intended for the welfare of the people of all the regions of the state), including government infrastructure, were exclusively centred in and developed around Hyderabad by extensively investing resources of the combined state,” the plea said.
It said the transitional arrangement of Hyderabad being the joint capital of the two states is slated to end in 2024 and hence the urgency to divide their assets.
