1 week ago
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Telangana High Court on Thursday directed the Government Pleader for Law and Legislative Affairs to ensure that the petitions seeking disqualification of BRS MLAs Kadiyam Srihari and Thellam Venkat Rao reached the office of Telangana State Assembly Speaker.
Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy of Telangana High Court passed this order while hearing two writ petitions filed by BRS MLA K.P. Vivekananda Goud of Qutbullahpur constituency seeking disqualification of his party MLAs who joined the ruling Congress party. The two legislators, Kadiyam Srihari and Thellam Venkat Rao of Ghanpur and Bhadradri Kothagudem Assembly constituencies respectively got elected on BRS ticket in the Assembly elections held a few months ago.
Another petition was filed by Huzurabad BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy requesting for a direction to disqualify BRS MLA Danam Nagender of Khairatabad constituency after the latter joined Congress party. Mr. Nagender, who won Khairatabad Assembly election as BRS nominee, joined Congress and is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Secunderabad constituency as Congress candidate.
The BRS party, which won consecutively for two terms lost the previous election with Congress party forming the government. The two BRS MLAs joined Congress a few weeks ago. Senior counsel Gandra Mohan Rao, appearing for the petitioner, informed the court that the petitioner was not allowed by the staff of the Speaker to hand over the disqualification petitions to the Speaker.
As a result, the petitioner sent the same through Registered Post with Acknowledgement Due and email. However, they were not received by the Speaker’s officer, the counsel said. Senior counsel appearing for the Speaker told the court that the Speaker has a time of three months to act upon the disqualification petitions pending before him. The petitioner had rushed to the court seeking a direction to act upon the disqualification petitions, he said.
The judge directed the petitioners’ counsels to hand over the petitions to the GP for Law and Legislative Affairs with a covering letter. He directed the Advocate General to instruct the GP to acknowledge the same. The hearing of the petitions was posted to April 29 to know the status of petitions reaching the office of the Speaker.
