Telangana HC stays order on petitions seeking MLA disqualifications
The division bench refused to impose any time frame on the speaker to decide on the disqualification petitions
The Telangana high court on Friday refused to interfere in the powers of legislative assembly speaker G Prasad Kumar to decide on the disqualification of lawmakers who defected from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) into the Congress, further directing the speaker to deal with the pleas within “reasonable time
A division bench of chief justice Alok Aradhe and justice J Sreenivas Rao set aside the judgement given by a single judge bench of justice B Vijaysen Reddy on September 9 directing Telangana legislature secretary general Dr Narasimha Charyulu to decide on the disqualification pleas pending before the assembly speaker within four weeks.
The division bench delivered the judgement after hearing the arguments on three appeals filed by Charyulu who challenged the order of the single judge bench and its legal validity in view of the powers the speaker has at a pre-decisional stage.
The division bench refused to impose any time frame on the speaker to decide on the disqualification petitions. However, the bench asked the speaker to decide the pleas within a reasonable time. Justice Aradhe said the speaker, as chairman of the tribunal constituted under Schedule 10 of the Constitution, must keep in mind the purpose of this schedule and the resultant anti-defection law. “The speaker must also keep in mind the tenure of the current assembly and resolve the pending disqualification pleas before him within a reasonable time,” he said.
The assembly secretary, in his plea contended, that the courts can review its decisions only after the speaker takes a decision and not before that.
The pending pleas pertain to three legislators –– Danam Nagender, Kadiam Srihari and Tellam Venkat Rao –– who got elected on BRS tickets and later switched to the Congress without relinquishing their legislator posts.
While BRS leaders Padi Kaushik Reddy and KP Vivekananda filed three separate pleas seeking disqualification of all the MLAs, BJP floor leader in the assembly Aleti Maheshwar Reddy filed a separate plea seeking disqualification of Danam Nagender who contested as a Congress candidate in the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat immediately after getting elected as the Khairatabad MLA on a BRS ticket.
On September 9, justice Vijaysen Reddy gave four weeks to the state legislative assembly speaker G Prasad Kumar to decide on these disqualification petitions. He directed the state assembly secretary to place the file pertaining to the disqualification petitions before the speaker immediately. The judge also instructed the assembly speaker to decide on the pleas within four weeks.
While disposing of the petitions, the court indicated that the case would be reopened suo motu if the speaker fails to decide within four weeks. This was challenged before the division bench by the state assembly secretary.