Justice Srikrishna for Telangana panel?

Former Supreme Court Judge B.N. Srikrishna appears to be the frontrunner to head the judicial committee being considered by the Centre to go into the Telangana issue.

Sources said the chances of his name getting cleared at the highest level of the government as well as the Congress party are brighter, adding that the names of other former judges of the Supreme Court like Justices Tarun Chatterjee, Shivaraj Patil and A.R. Lakshmanan were also considered.

The committee will keep as basis the statement made by Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on December 9, 2009, that “the process of forming the State of Telangana will be initiated and an appropriate resolution moved in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly.”

It will try to evolve a framework for reaching political consensus, examine the feasibility (of the process on Telangana), and go into the modalities to be worked out in this regard and the time-frame required.

The committee, which will elicit the views of various stakeholders on the issue, is also likely to touch upon important aspects like the sharing of Krishna and Godavari river waters, natural resources, the fate of Hyderabad if Telangana is formed, resettlement of government officials, and the issue of long-time settlers of the Andhra/Rayalaseema regions in Telangana areas.

Sources said that when the then Nizam State was merged with Andhra Pradesh (which was carved out from the Madras Presidency), a gentlemen agreement was reached between the two Chief Ministers that people from the Andhra/Rayalaseema regions would not buy properties in the Telangana areas.

Mr. Chidambaram, who had spoken about the setting up of the committee here on Thursday without revealing its exact composition, added that an announcement in this regard would be made by next week.

A senior Union minister claimed that the announcement about the committee was deliberately made on Thursday to further cool down the tense atmosphere in Andhra Pradesh, as the Telangana Joint Action Committee had set January 28 as the deadline on the issue, failing which they threatened to force the acceptance of resignation letters of MPs, MLAs, MLCs and other elected representatives from the region.