Telangana High Court on Monday passed an order staying Government Order (GO) 121 issued by State government’s Finance department on July 23 over redeployment of Village Revenue Officers (VROs).
A bench of Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Chada Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy passed this direction after hearing a writ petition filed by Telangana VROs Association represented by its president G. Satish and others challenging the GO. Earlier, the Telangana government had abolished the posts of 5,138 VROs through the Telangana Abolition of the posts of VROs Act-2020.
The Act stated that persons working in the posts of VROs should be transferred and absorbed in any department as per administrative exigency. On July 23, the government released GO 121 redeploying all the 5,138 VROs. Out of them, 56 VROs chose not to join the other departments to which they were transferred.
With the bench staying the order prospectively, only 56 VROs who had not joined other departments would be continued in Revenue department. These VROs should be allotted work in Revenue department and paid emoluments until further orders, the bench said.
Presenting arguments, petitioners’ advocate P.V. Krishnaiah said redeployment of VROs was made in blatant violation of different sections of the VROs Abolition Act. The Finance department had no role in re-allocation of VROs and the Chief Secretary had no power to issue such GO, he told the bench.
Mr. Krishnaiah said section 4 (1) of the Act-2020 required the government to make rules for transfer and absorption of VROs into other wings of the government. “But no such rules were framed,” petitioners’ counsel said. Moreover, the authorities issued an executive order in the form of GO 121. This was not even placed before the floor of the Assembly as mandated under sub-section 2 of section 5 of the Act, he said.
On hearing counsel’s contentions, the CJ sought to know from Advocate General B.S. Prasad why the government had not framed the rules for absorption of VROs. He observed the instructions at third paragraph of GO 121 appeared to be beyond the mandate of sub-section 1 of section 5 of the VROs Abolition Act-2020.
Mr. B.S. Prasad told the bench that the government no more required the services of VROs as entire data relating to records of lands in the State was digitised and incorporated in Dharani portal. The AG contended that it was the policy decision of the government to re-allocate VROs to other departments.
Four days ago, the bench passed an interim direction instructing the government to maintain status quo over redeployment of 19 VROs in a separate writ petition they had filed. The bench had then declined to stay the GO 121.
