SC gives ‘one last chance’ to T speaker on turncoat MLAs

Hyderabad: Supreme Court on Friday granted a ‘one last chance' to assembly speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar to decide on the disqualification pleas against BRS MLAs who defected to the ruling Congress and file an affidavit on the action taken so far. It directed that a status report be filed before the next date of hearing, adjourning the matter for two weeks.A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Augustine George Masih said it was giving the speaker one last opportunity, warning that "consequences will follow" otherwise.The court was hearing petitions filed by BRS leaders K T Rama Rao and others.Appearing for the speaker, senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Mukul Rohatgi sought an additional eight weeks to complete the proceedings. They informed the court that the speaker could not decide on all the petitions as he had recently undergone an eye surgery. They also told the bench that orders in seven disqualification petitions had already been pronounced, while the order in one case had been reserved.On Thursday, Prasad Kumar dismissed petitions seeking the disqualification of two BRS MLAs — Pocharam Srinivas Reddy (Banswada) and Kale Yadaiah (Chevella). Earlier, in Dec, he had dismissed disqualification petitions against five other MLAs — Tellam Venkat Rao (Bhadrachalam), Bandla Krishna Mohan Reddy (Gadwal), T Prakash Goud (Rajendranagar), Gudem Mahipal Reddy (Patancheru) and Arekapudi Gandhi (Serilingampally).In all these cases, the speaker ruled that there was insufficient material to prove their defection to the Congress party.Of the remaining three cases, the speaker has completed hearings in the petition against Jagtial MLA Sanjay Kumar and reserved the order, while the cases involving Danam Nagender (Khairatabad) and Kadiyam Srihari (Station Ghanpur) are still pending. While Srihari has replied to the Speaker's notice, Nagender is yet to respond.Meanwhile, opposing the plea for an extension, senior advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, appearing for the BRS leaders, argued that the speaker had already been granted three months to decide the pleas and that the period had expired long ago. He emphasised that Prasad Kumar should not be given repeated extensions as he had failed to comply with the court's earlier directions.The development follows a contempt notice issued by the apex court to the Telangana speaker in Nov 2025, in which the court termed the non-compliance with its directions as the "grossest kind of contempt."