A Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court comprising Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice M. Satyanarayana Murthy on Monday heard the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by P. Srinivasulu, which challenged the amendment made to the Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions Endowments Act, 1987 to reduce the 21-member strength of the A.P. Dharmika Parishad to just a four-member body.
Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Umesh Chandra P.V.G. informed the court that by reducing the strength of the Dharmika Parishad to a four-member body, the government had made it an exclusive executive body in clear violation of a judgment passed by the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court judgment
The Bench questioned that if a case with a similar subject matter had ever been dealt with by the apex court and directed the registry to take the said judgment on record. Then it said the PIL should be tagged with the PIL filed by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which is pending for adjudication.
When Mr. Umesh Chandra argued that the PIL filed by the TTD had no relevance to the present PIL, the Bench observed that the two PILs were related for the reason that in the case of the TTD, the strength of the Trust Board had been increased whereas in the PIL related to the A.P. Dharmika Parishad, the State for some reason intended to reduce the strength thereby acting contrary to what it had done in the case of the TTD Board.
The court inquired about the listing date of the PIL by the TTD and directed the registry to post the present PIL along with it. The case has been listed for hearing along with the TTD’s PIL on June 22 .
