BRS MLAs' case: Hearing ends, Telangana high court reserves judgment

HYDERABAD: Justice B Vijaysen Reddy of Telangana high court on Wednesday concluded the hearing in three writ petitions filed by BRS and BJP seeking disqualification of three defected BRS MLAs — Danam Nagender, Tellam Venkat Rao and Kadiyam Srihari —under the provisions of the anti-defection law and reserved his judgment.The judge heard the arguments of senior advocates P Sri Raghu Ram and B Mayur Reddy, who contended that the petitioners approached the court at a premature stage within days of filing their pleas before the speaker without allowing reasonable time for the latter to look at the issue.Appearing for Danam Nagender, Sri Raghu Ram said that the purpose of filing the writ petition just before the Lok Sabha polls was to get publicity and malign the speaker and more particularly Danam Nagender, who was contesting the May 2024 polls.“This writ petition is not maintainable because it is seeking a mandamus against the speaker. No court has ever passed such a direction against the speaker of the House in this country,” he said. They were citing the judgement of the Supreme Court in the Keisham Meghachandra Singh case of Manipur. The petitioner in that case was seeking a writ of quo warranto and the court did not grant relief. Hence, this case will not fit the bill to seek a mandamus against the speaker, the senior counsel said.The SC in the Kihoto Hollohan case had upheld the constitutional validity of the amended provisions of the X schedule of the Constitution. “In the Errabelli Dayakar Rao case, our own high court stated that defection rules are procedural in nature and refrained from issuing any direction to speaker,” he said.Arguing for Kadiam Srihari, senior counsel Mayur Reddy said the question of judicial review of a decision taken by a speaker would arise only if there was one. Even then, the procedural irregularities, if any, cannot be gone into. The judge reserved his orders.