Telangana HC sets aside order on disqualification pleas, asks speaker to decide in reasonable time

HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court on Friday set aside a Sept 9, 2024 single judge order that directed the secretary of Telangana Assembly to convey within 4 weeks a time frame for adjudicating the disqualification pleas pending before the Speaker.
The bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas Rao which ruled against imposition of any time frame on the Speaker, however, asked him to decide the pleas within a reasonable time. Elaborating further, the bench said that the Speaker, as chairman of the tribunal constituted under X schedule 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, the bench said while disposing of the three appeals filed by Telangana Assembly Secretary who challenged the order of the single judge and its legal validity in view of the powers the Speaker has at a pre-decisional stage.
The assembly in its plea contended that the courts can review its decisions only after its 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 loyalties to Congress without relinquishing their legislator posts.
While BRS filed three separate pleas seeking disqualification of all the three MLAs, the BJP filed a separate plea seeking disqualification of Danam Nagender who contested as Secunderabad Lok Sabha Congress Candidate immediately after getting elected as Khairatabad MLA on a BRS ticket.