A division bench of the High Court comprising acting chief justice PC Ghose and justice Vilas V Afzulpurkar on Tuesday stalled the enhancement of water cess by the Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board.
The bench was dealing with a writ petition filed by the Forum for Good Governance Society challenging the action of the civic authorities enhancing the water tax with effect from December 1 last year. The petitioner contended that the board had failed to collect over Rs 170- crore water cess arrears from various government organisations and was passing on the liability to the common man.
The state authorities said that while dues to the water board stood at around Rs 170 crore, it owed Transco about Rs 160 crore towards electricity charges.
The bench directed that the authorities collect the arrears of Rs 170 crore within two months and reassess the need for enhancement of water tariff.
Sakshi reporter gets anticipatory bail
Justice Samudrala Govindarajulu of the High Court on Tuesday granted conditional anticipatory bail to Yadagiri Reddy, a senior journalist with Sakshi newspaper.
Yadagiri is accused in a complaint made by Chandrabala that call data relating to her telephonic conversations with CBI joint director VV Lakshminarayana was published in the newspaper at the instance of the petitioner. A complaint was registered under provisions of the Indian Penal Code, Indian Telegraph Act and the Official Secrets Act.
The judge pointed out that even though it involved persons of high profile it had no bearing on the penal provisions. While disposing of the petition, he directed the petitioner to surrender before the magistrate concerned on or before August 14 for availing bail by producing a bond for Rs 10,000 and two sureties. He further directed him to cooperate with the probe if the investigating officers issued summons for his appearance.
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