HC hits pause; Congress fumbles
Court flags debt, keeps Kalyana Lakshmi/Shaadi Mubarak on hold while asking Telangana to show its maths. The BJP-led Centre’s FRBM rules are now the homework. The Congress government in Telangana wanted the tap reopened; the bench wasn’t convinced.
The High Court continued the pause and asked Telangana to explain the finances behind the schemes.
The Telangana High Court has kept in place its interim stay on eight Government Orders linked to Kalyana Lakshmi and Shaadi Mubarak, after the state asked to resume disbursements. According to multiple reports, the stay was first ordered on August 12 and continued at the August 19–20 hearing before Justice N.V. Shravan Kumar. The petition was filed by advocate Vijay Gopal, challenging the scheme GOs.
The judge pressed the state on priorities and financing, comparing wedding cheques with unpaid land-acquisition compensation, pensions and post-retirement dues. “What is the priority? The danger bells are ringing,” he said in court, per a report, and directed the principal secretary, Finance, to file a detailed affidavit on debt tied to welfare spending and compliance with the state FRBM law. The bench also told the state to fix an affidavit that misquoted Article 162 — the official explanation for that was “typographical”.
This is not yet a finding that the schemes are illegal or that borrowing for them violates the FRBM Act; those were reported as observations, not a final holding. What is on the record via reporting is the pause, the questions, and a deadline: file the numbers and the legal basis, then argue. The Congress government in Telangana asked to switch the schemes back on without first answering the court’s homework; the court declined to take it on trust.