Telangana HC directs Assembly speaker to rule on disqualification pleas against BRS MLAs in 4 weeks

The Telangana High Court on Monday gave the Assembly speaker four weeks to decide on disqualification petitions against three Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLAs who defected to the Congress after state elections last year, Live Law reported.

Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLAs P Kaushik Reddy and Vivekananda Goud filed the petitions against their former colleagues Danam Nagender, Kadiam Srihari and T Venkat Rao.

Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Maheshwar Reddy has filed a separate plea for Nagender’s disqualification.

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi and the BJP are part of the Opposition in Congress-ruled Telangana.

The bench, led by Justice B Vijaysen Reddy, noted that there was no information on the status of the disqualification petitions, which is why the petitioners had approached the High Court.

The bench directed Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar to decide on the pleas in four weeks, failing which it would take up the matter suo motu.

The petitioners’ counsel on Monday noted Kumar’s delay in acting on the petitions that were filed over three months ago. They argued that this could allow the ruling party to facilitate further defections from the Opposition.

The counsel for the three defecting MLAs and the state government argued that the speaker could not be directed to decide on the disqualification pleas by a court order.

In a similar case, last year, the Supreme Court had criticised the Maharashtra Assembly speaker for delaying the disqualification petitions against rebel Shiv Sena MLAs who joined the party’s breakaway faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

The top court said that the speaker could not indefinitely postpone proceedings under the anti-defection law.

The three-judge bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud ordered that the petitions be presented to the speaker within one week, with instructions to establish a timeline for hearings and procedural directions.