Telangana HC sets aside single judge order in MLAs disqualification pleas

View of Telangana High Court building in Hyderabad. File
| Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL

Telangana High Court on Friday (November 22, 2024) set aside a single judge order directing the office of Telangana Assembly Speaker to announce a schedule for deciding the applications for disqualification of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLAs who joined ruling Congress party. 

A bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J. Sreenivas Rao, disposing of three appeals filed by the Legislative Assembly secretary, said the Speaker should take a call on the disqualification issue within a ‘reasonable time’. 

While two writ petitions were filed by BRS MLAs K.P. Vivekanand and Padi Kaushik Reddy, the third was filed by BJP floor leader A. Maheshwar Reddy. They sought disqualification of Danam Nagender (Khairatabad), Tellam Venkat Rao (Bhadrachalam) and Kadiyam Srihari (Station Ghanpur), who joined ruling Congress party having won the State Assembly elections-2023 as BRS candidates. 

After hearing the pleas, a single judge on September 9, 2024 passed an order directing the office of the Speaker to pronounce a schedule of the hearing of the petitions seeking disqualification of the MLAs and furnish a copy of the schedule to the Registry of the HC. 

Challenging this order, the Legislative Secretary moved the HC by filing appeal petitions.