New Delhi: The Supreme Court today said the
issue of carving out a separate state of Telangana from Andhra
Pradesh was a "political question" which cannot be answered by
it.
It said no larger constitutional question is arising at
this stage from the issue as there is no decision on the
division of the state requiring its interference to examine
the legality.
"We are of the view that at this stage, the larger
constitutional question does not arise for consideration. As
far as the division of the state is concerned, it is a
political question and we cannot answer that," a Bench
comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justice K S
Radhakrishnan said.
The Bench disfavoured the idea of laying down of
guidelines for exercising powers by the government to go into
the contentious issue of creating a separate Telangana state
from Andhra Pradesh.
It said that when a law is proposed for carving out the
new state, it would consider the matter afresh.
"Till date, no law has been proposed for the purpose of
carving out the state and as and when something is proposed or
enacted, we will consider it and it will be open for the
petitioners to approach this court," the Bench said giving
liberty to the petitioners to withdraw their petitions which
were filed when the agitation for Telangana was at its peak.
The two PILs had contended that no constitutional power
can be exercised arbitrarily and there must be some guidelines
or basis in this regard.
"Power under Article 3 and 4 is the solemn constitutional
power and it is obvious that no constitutional power can be
exercised arbitrarily and at will without there being a
fundamental constitutional paradigm or basis to the exercise
of power," senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for K
Srinivas Reddy, said.
He said the manner in which the entire matter relating to
creation of a new state was being dealt with proved that there
was no established principle for the government to act on such
issues.
The court`s attention was drawn to the fact that
government has appointed Justice B N Srikrishna Commission to
look into the creation of Telangana state.
However, the Bench said it will not go into that aspect
as it was not speculating about what would be the
recommendation of the Committee.
PTI
