Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court suspended G.O. Rt. No. 402 related to the mutual transfer of government teachers within erstwhile districts. Justice B Vijayasen Reddy while passing the interim order said the G.O. goes against the new presidential order brought in after the formation of new districts. Earlier, the court had ordered status quo on GO implementation till April 11.

The court was hearing a batch of pleas submitted by the secondary grade teachers from Jayashankar Bhupalapally district. The affected teachers had moved the court saying the state has no power to issue the GO as it amounts to interfering with the presidential order. GO 402 allows mutual transfer of teachers within the erstwhile districts.

Advocates NS Arjun Kumar and M Ramgopal Rao, while appearing for the petitioners, argued that the new presidential order allowed transfer of teachers from local cadre to another local cadre on a mutual transfer basis, however, it was subjected to restriction that persons so transferred shall forego seniority in the previous local cadre and shall be assigned the last rank in the new local and the GO Rt 402 removes this condition.

The advocates further argued that the action of the state government is violative of the Constitution. After hearing the arguments, the judge asked the state government to file a reply by June 20.