Telangana High Court Reviews Petition to Disqualify BRS MLAs
The Telangana High Court, under Justice Bollam Vijaysen Reddy, reviewed multiple petitions on Monday. These petitions request that the Assembly Speaker disqualify BRS MLAs who have defected to the Congress party.
Justice Reddy asked Advocate-General A Sudarshan Reddy when the Speaker will act on these disqualification petitions. He questioned how long the court should wait for a decision and how long the petitions should remain pending. The A-G responded that these are constitutional issues and courts cannot bypass them.
The A-G also mentioned that the petitioners used inappropriate language against the Speaker, which should be grounds for dismissing the petitions. He pointed out that the petitioners went to court within 10 days of filing petitions with the Speaker.
Ravishankar Jandhyala, senior counsel for D Nagender, now a Congress MLA, dismissed the arguments made by senior counsels for BRS. He argued that in other states, courts have directed Speakers to make decisions on similar matters.
The BRS argued that the Speaker has not made any decisions on their disqualification petitions, so courts cannot pass orders against the Speaker. Gandra Mohan Rao, senior counsel for BRS, opposed the A-G’s contention, stating that the petitions were filed over a month ago, not just 10 days.
Rao clarified that the Speaker’s office only acknowledged the disqualification petitions after a court direction. He questioned why the court cannot direct the Speaker to act on these petitions if it can direct the Secretary of the TS Assembly to receive them.
Rao reminded the court about a Supreme Court observation that a person facing disqualification should not remain an MLA even for a single day. He argued that the Speaker has failed in his constitutional duty by not acting on the petitions, even 3.5 months after receiving them.
The judge heard three writ petitions: one by Padi Kaushik Reddy seeking Nagender’s disqualification, another by Kuna Pandu Vivekananda seeking Tellam Venkata Rao’s disqualification, and a third by Maheshwar Reddy also seeking Nagender’s disqualification. The hearing was adjourned to August 6 for further arguments.
