Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Friday said the Speaker of the state Legislative Assembly must decide on the disqualification petitions against three BRS MLAs, who had joined the ruling Congress, within a “reasonable time”.
A bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas Rao said no such deadline could be set, but asked Speaker Gaddam Kumar to rule on the matter within a “reasonable time”.
Danam Nagender, Kadiam Srihari, and TV Rao were elected from the Khairatabad, Ghanpur Station, and Bhadrachalam in the election held in November last year. But by April this year, all three joined the ruling Congress without resigning from their respective Assembly seats.
The Congress thumped the BRS in last year’s election. The national party won 64 of 119 Assembly seats. K Chandrashekar Rao’s party, which swept 88 in the last election, got just 39 this time, and the Bharatiya Janata Party and Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM got eight and seven.
Petitions seeking disqualification of the three ex-BRS MLAs had been filed by former colleagues and also the BJP’s Alleti Maheshwar Reddy. The High Court was approached after the Speaker was accused of inaction despite petitions filed under Schedule X of the Constitution, an amendment that seeks to curtail MLAs’ and MPS’ ability to jump from one party to another.
Those seeking disqualification argued that continuing to delay ruling on their petitions would allow the ruling party time to persuade more lawmakers from rival parties to jump ship.
The Speaker, however, argued the High Court lacked jurisdiction to issue such orders.
Overall, 10 MLAs defected from the BRS to the Congress after the Assembly election.
The defections triggered a furious spat between the parties; in September, after the High Court’s single-judge bench order, the BRS’ P Kaushik Reddy fired a crude and sexist barb, asking the defectors to wear sarees and bangles. The remark drew a fierce reply from a Congress leader, who warned Mr Reddy he would be physically assaulted if he continued to insult women.
