In a significant development, three Andhra Pradesh High Court lawyers resigned on Wednesday.
According to informed sources, the three advocates including Penumaka Venkatrao, Gaddam Satish Babu and Sheikh Habeeb have put in their papers.
It is not known why the three advocates have quit, but doubts were being raised whether they quit on their own or were forced to resign.
The state government had appointed Penumaka Venkatrao and Gaddam Satish Babu as state counsels only a month ago.
The resignations, however, come in the wake of the state government losing its face in at least 65 cases in the High Court. Did the three advocates quit owning moral responsibility for losing the cases or did the state government remove them for facing ignominy in the recent court cases.
Recently, the Jagan sarkar had axed the Advocate On Record for losing crucial cases in the Supreme Court. On Monday, the Andhra Pradesh government had removed Advocate on Record G Nageshwar Reddy replacing him with Moazzam Naqvi. Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy was mighty displeased with Advocate on Record G Nageshwar Reddy for losing important cases relating to removal of party colours and postponement of civic body elections by SEC. Jagan was of the view that Advocate on Record G Nageshwar Reddy had failed to present the arguments of the government effectively in the Supreme Court thereby leading to a loss of face for the government in the Supreme Court.
Recently, the Supreme Court had dismissed the Andhra Pradesh government’s plea challenging Andhra Pradesh High Court order to remove the ruling party’s colours from government buildings and panchayat offices. The Jagan government, represented by lawyer G N Reddy, claimed that the colours were in no way related to the YSRCP flag. However, the Supreme Court had observed, “There is no ambiguity in the direction issued by the High Court that any colour which is similar to the flag of any political party should not be used for painting gram panchayat buildings.”
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down the Andhra Pradesh government’s plea to stay the High Court order on reinstating Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar as State Election Commissioner. In an embarrassment to the Jagan government, the Supreme Court also found fault with the Andhra Pradesh government’s Ordinance to remove Ramesh Kumar as SEC saying it was done with a malafide intention.
In the High Court, the Jagan sarkar received a knock on its knuckles on removal of the YSRCP colours on government buildings and scrapping of English as medium of instruction in government schools. In the YSRCP colours issue, the High Court had directed the state government to remove the colours observing that painting public buildings in ruling party and flag colours amounted to “influencing the minds of the citizens towards its ideology.” The High Court had called it an “evil practice” using public money. The state government had to swallow a bitter pill in the Supreme Court in the same case.
