Hyderabad HC to hear plea on convicted TRS MLA

Hyderabad: A major controversy has cropped up over the application of automatic disqualification proceedings against Patancheru TRS MLA Guduru Mahipal Reddy, after a Sangareddy court convicted and sentenced him to 2.5 years imprisonment on December 10, 2015. The matter has now caught the attention of the Telangana Legislature, the Election Commission and the Hyderabad High Court.

BJP leader Madhavaneni Raghunandana Rao, who hails from Patancheru, has moved the High Court seeking immediate notification from the Election Commission declaring the seat as vacant. Mr Rao has also sought to know why TS Assembly Speaker S. Madhusudana Chary has not begun proceedings to disqualify the MLA from the post.

As per a judgement of the Supreme Court, such proceedings should have begun within one week of conviction and sentencing by the trial court, and in this case, three weeks have elapsed, Mr Rao said.

According to sources, soon after the judgement against the MLA was delivered, the Medak SP had sent a report to the authorities concerned, including to the Chief Electoral Officer, communicating the same (Letter No. 1012/D2/DCRB).

After a few days, the Medak district collector sent a report giving details of the case to the TS Assembly Speaker, who is vested with the power of notifying the disqualification of MLA and also declare the seat vacant ‘automatically’ to follow the law of the land.

Meanwhile, Mr Mahipal Reddy approached the Speaker and handed over a copy of an order by the Sangareddy Sessions Court suspending the conviction and sentence granted by the Sangareddy Additional Judicial First Class Magistrate. Unable to take a call on the issue, the Speaker kept the matter pending till date.

This has now resulted the issue landing in the High Court through a writ petition filed by Mr Rao. The matter is most likely to come up for hearing on Thursday.

Petitioner sought directions from High Court on how could the Assembly authorities pay the salary for the month of December to the MLA who ought to have been declared disqualified, directions to the authority concerned to declare the Patancheru Assembly seat vacant, and, if an notification was not issued by now, direct the authorities to notify the disqualification of the MLA.

When contacted, Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwarlal refused to comment on the issue, saying, “The matter is sub-juidice now, a writ petition has been filed in High Court, let the court decide”.

Speaker Madhusudana Chary was not available for comments.

The Supreme Court in its July 10, 2013 judgement in the Lily Thomas vs Union of India case, ruled that any Member of Parliament, Member of the Legislative Assembly or Member of a Legislative Council, who is convicted of a crime and awarded a minimum of two year imprisonment, loses membership of the House with immediate effect.

This is in contrast to the earlier position, wherein convicted members held on to their seats until they exhausted all judicial remedies in lower, High and Supreme Courts.

Further, Section 8(4) of the Representation of People Act, which allowed elected representatives three months to appeal against their conviction, was declared unconstitutional by the bench of Justice A. K. Patnaik and Justice S. J. Mukhopadhaya and has been repealed.

On October 1, 2013, Rasheed Masood became the first MP to lose his Membership of Parliament under the new guidelines, when he was sentenced to four years imprisonment for cheating, forgery and corruption.

The court of the Sangareddy Additional Judicial First Class Magistrate had on December 10, 2015 sentenced Mr Mahipal Reddy to two-and-a-half years imprisonment and fined him '2,500 on a petition filed by Versatile Auto Component Industries at Pashamylaram.

The court gave the legislator a month to appeal before the district court. Mahesh, an employee of Versatile Auto Component Industries, had been found dead on the company premises under suspicious conditions in May 2014. Blaming the company for Mahesh’s death, Mr Mahipal Reddy, along with his followers, had barged into the premises.

Company MD P. Chandu Kumar then lodged a complaint with the police alleging that the MLA and his followers had damaged property and demanded '15 lakh towards compensation for Mahesh’s family.

Mr Kumar in his complaint alleged that Mr Mahipal Reddy had forced him to sign a '15 lakh cheque. In addition to that, he demanded '5 lakh for himself, Mr Kumar said.

The police registered a case against Mr Mahipal Reddy under Sections 342 (wrongful confinement), 448 (trespass), 504 (insult) and 386 (extortion) of the IPC.