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Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Friday, August 14, dismissed as not maintainable two separate public interest litigations, one by Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLA T Harish Rao and another by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Payal Shankar, seeking a court direction to the state government to release pending crop loss compensation to farmers.

A division bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice GM Mohiuddin turned down both petitions. Shankar’s plea ran into trouble even earlier in the process, with the court registry flagging objections over its maintainability, and since the petitioner could not satisfy those objections. In fact, as the matter never even got as far as being assigned a PIL number before it, was rejected too.

Why the court stepped back

The bench questioned at the outset whether a PIL was the right route at all, noting that courts exercising writ jurisdiction do not ordinarily direct the executive on how public funds are allocated or released. Chief Justice Singh observed that such calls rest on budgetary priorities, revenue considerations and administrative discretion, territory the judiciary is reluctant to enter. 

Since Harish Rao himself sits in the legislature, the bench added, he had a more appropriate forum available. He could take the grievance up with the government and the House directly.

Compensation dispute

Harish Rao’s petition had argued that the state government’s own orders, including government order (GO) 567 and related proceedings, had administratively sanctioned compensation for close to 10 lakh farmers whose crops were destroyed by heavy rains and cyclones. 

Yet, the money had actually reached only around 10,000 farmers, and that too in Adilabad district alone, leaving the vast majority of sanctioned beneficiaries still waiting, the petition claimed.