HYDERABAD: Telangana HC Friday set aside a single judge order of Sept 9 directing assembly secretary to convey within four weeks a time frame for adjudicating disqualification pleas against three turncoat BRS MLAs pending before the Speaker. The trio had joined Congress.
The bench said that the Speaker must decide the pleas against Danam Nagender, Kadiam Srihari and Tellam Venkat Rao within a “reasonable time”.
The bench stressed that the Speaker, as chairman of the tribunal constituted under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, must keep in mind the purpose of this schedule and resultant anti-defection law.
“The Speaker shall bear in mind the concept of reasonable time by taking into account the period of pendency of the disqualification petitions, the object of inclusion of Tenth Schedule to the Constitution as well as the tenure of the assembly,” the bench further explained.
The assembly secretary had challenged the single judge order, contending that courts could review decisions only after the Speaker took them and not before that. While BRS had filed three separate pleas seeking disqualification, BJP lodged a separate petition seeking disqualification of Nagender who had contested as Secunderabad LS Congress candidate immediately after getting elected as Khairatabad MLA on a BRS ticket.