Disqualification petitions must be decided expeditiously: SC | Hyderabad News – The Times of India

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Telangana assembly speaker must expeditiously decide pending petitions seeking disqualification of 10 BRS turncoat MLAs, who aligned with the governing Congress, while criticising attempts by the counsel for the Speaker and the state to delay a decision by SC. The bench would decide the matter on March 25.
“Every time it cannot be that operation is successful, but patient is dead,” said a bench of Justices B R Gavai and K Vinod Chandran referring to past cases where the delay in deciding such petitions by SC resulted in the term of assembly coming to an end and MLAs, accused of violating the anti-defection law, escaping disqualification.
Justice Gavai said, “People are not interested in SC deciding academic questions on disqualification. If the wrongdoers continue as MLAs and enjoy their full term without the anti-defection law kicking in, what happens to democracy and democratic values?”
The bench asked senior advocates A M Singhvi and Mukul Rohatgi, who opposed issuance of any direction to the Speaker for deciding the disqualification petitions, to specify a timeline for the Speaker to decide after they argued no notice had been issued by SC on the petitions filed by BRS and its working president K T Rama Rao, and MLA P Kaushik Reddy.
Senior advocates C S Sundaram and D S Naidu, appearing for the BRS petitioners, said it was the Speaker, who through counsel, is attempting to delay the hearing in SC. The bench agreed with them and recorded in its order that when the matter was listed before it on Jan 31, it had asked Rohatgi whether the Speaker would give a timeline for deciding the disqualification petitions to avoid a direction from SC.
“On Feb 20, when the matters were listed again, Rohatgi had told the court that no such statement could be given by the Speaker to SC,” the bench said and remarked that on Tuesday a hyper-technical objection is being taken by Rohatgi and Singhvi that formal notice had not been issued to the speaker.
The bench said it wanted to avoid the accusation that the court decided the matter without issuing notice. It sent the notice to the Speaker through the the registrar (judicial) of Telangana HC and posted the matter for further hearing on March 25.
The 10 BRS MLAs who face disqualification proceedings are — Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, Kale Yadaiah, Sanjay Kumar, Krishna Mohan Reddy, Mahipal Reddy, Prakash Goud, Arekapudi Gandhi, Danam Nagender, T Venkat Rao and Kadiyam Srihari. The petitions against them were filed in March/Apr 2023.
A single-judge of the Telangana HC had directed the assembly secretary to seek a time frame from the Speaker for deciding the disqualification petitions, but on appeal a division bench of the HC had set aside the order saying the Speaker would decide the petitions within a reasonable period.
SC on Tuesday asked what a reasonable period is. Singhvi said the Speaker has issued notice to the BRS MLAs and would decide soon. The bench would decide the matter on March 25.