HYDERABAD: A division bench comprising acting chief justice N V Ramana
and Justice Vilas V Afzulpurkar of the AP High Court on Monday issued a
suo motu contempt notice to the state government for failing to recover
dues of Rs 172 crore owed by various government organisations to the
Hyderabad Metro Water Works and Sewerage Board despite a court order
that made it mandatory.

The bench was dealing with a plea by
Forum for Good Governance challenging the water board’s move to raise
tariffs rather than rely on recovering its dues from big players like
government departments and private companies etc.

On July 31,
2012, the high court had directed the municipal and urban development
department to ensure the recovery of Rs 172 crore dues within two
months. It had also ordered them to not enhance water tariff till then
and to reassess the need for a hike after the dues were collected.

Earlier, the department had admitted before court that the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation ( GHMC)
had water dues of Rs 49.4 crore. The police department had pending dues
of Rs 5.78 crore, surrounding gram panchayats and municipalities had Rs
41.52 crore and Rs 22.84 crore respectively, rural water supply
department had Rs 29.74 crore, Rajiv Gruha Kalpa Corporation had Rs 4.46
crore, Gandhi Medical College had Rs 4.16 crore, Military Engineering
Services had Rs 7.13 crore and other departments had Rs 7.35 crore.

On Monday, Justice Ramana asked the government counsel the reasons for
not implementing its earlier order on recovery of dues. With the counsel
failing to furnish a convincing reply, the bench said it will take suo
motu cognisance of the case under the Contempt of Courts Act.
Accordingly, the bench issued notices to the state government and the
water board, and adjourned the case for two weeks.