Seven IAS officers attend Andhra high court!

[Anta Assamey]

As many as seven IAS officers appeared before the Andhra Pradesh high court on Tuesday in connection with a case pertaining to construction of village secretariat and Rythu Bharosa Kendram buildings in the premises of government schools.

A single judge bench headed by Justice Battu Devanand, which was hearing a petition against construction of buildings to accommodate village secretariat and Rythu Bharosa Kendrams on premises of the government schools, ordered in the past that they be shifted out of the schools.

The high court expressed anger over the authorities ignoring its orders and summoned the IAS officers responsible for the same. 

The seven officials – panchayat raj principal secretary Gopal Krishna Dwivedi, commissioner Girija Sankar, school education principal secretary B Raja Sekhar, its commissioner V Chinna Veerabhadrudu, former principal secretary (irrigation) Shyamala Rao, then municipal administration director G. Vijay Kumar and its director M M Naik – appeared before the court on Tuesday.

The high court ordered that the government submit a detailed report over the constructions.

Accordingly, the advocate general said the government was constructing buildings for 1,160 Rythu Bharosa Kendrams and Village Secretariats all over the state.

As many as 450 such constructions are taking place in the school premises and they would be shifted to other places, the AG said.

The high court ordered that the remaining constructions in the school premises be relocated within fouru weeks and posted the case to October 1 for further hearing.

In the past hearing, the high court observed that the officials were trying to escape from the responsibility of protecting school premises.

The court asked whether any of them had studied in a government school and were aware of the fact that poor children pursue education in government schools.

Justice Devanand observed that 90 percent of IAS officers are under impression that they need not implement court orders.