Hyderabad: The case of expulsion of Congress MLAs Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and SA Sampath Kumar from the Assembly took a new turn on Tuesday with the full bench of High Court granting a stay on Single Judge Orders of restoring sacked MLAs’ membership for two months. The full bench comprising Chief Justice Radhakrishnan passed interim orders of stay on the trail of Contempt of Court proceedings against Legislature and Law secretaries along with a notice to the Speaker.
It may be mentioned here that the Telangana State government filed an appeal to the High Court full bench urging it to quash the Single Judge orders to restore Assembly membership of Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and Sampath Kumar. The case was adjourned by four weeks.
During the budget session, Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary had expelled Congress MLAs — Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and SA Sampath Kumar — on the charge that the duo went berserk in the Assembly during Governor’s speech and injuring Legislative Council’s chairman K Swamy Goud. The Legislature Secretary issued gazette notification in this regard and forwarded the same to the Election Commission.
Challenging the Speaker’s decision, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and Sampath Kumar approached the High Court. After hearing the cas e, Single Judge B Shivashankar Rao issued orders asking the Assembly to restore their membership. Later, the two MLAs approached the High Court by filing Contempt of the Court case alleging that the Legislature secretary Narasimhacharyulu and Law secretary Niranjan Rao were not implementing the Court directions. Admitting the petition of the two MLAs, the Single Bench Judge directed the Legislature and Law secretaries to appear before the Court in person on August 26. Consequently, the State government appealed to the High Court to set aside the Single Bench’s ruling. Both the Legislature and Law secretaries pleaded with the court that they failed to appeal in the stipulated 61 days and urged the Court to admit the petition by condoning their mistake.
Arguing on behalf of the State government, Supreme Court senior advocate Mukhul Rohthagi explained to the Court that the Single Bench verdict was not proper and it led to issuing of notices to Assembly Speaker. He asked the Court whether it was correct on the part of the Single Judge to quash the Speaker’s orders saying that the Assembly failed to submit video footage. He also argued that the Assembly took the members’ unruly behaviour very serious and passed a unanimous resolution expelling the duo from the House. The Court admitted the government’s petition after receiving apologies and adjourned the case to September 25. (NSS)