Decide on BRS MLAs In 3 Months: SC

Hyderabad: The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Telangana Assembly Speaker to decide within three months, the disqualification petitions regarding 10 BRS MLAs who had defected to the Congress. The court directed the Speaker to not permit any of these MLAs to protract the disqualification proceedings.

In the event of any defector MLA attempting to drag out the proceedings, the Speaker would draw an adverse inference against him, the court noted.

A bench of the apex court comprising Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai and Justice Augustine George Maish on Thursday pronounced judgment, allowing the petitions filed by BRS leaders K.T. Rama Rao, Padi Kaushik Reddy and K.P. Vivekanand Goud. They had challenged the orders of a division bench of the Telangana High Court dated November 22, 2024, which had set aside the single judge orders dated September 9, 2024.

In its orders, the single judge bench of the High Court headed by Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy had directed the secretary of the Assembly to forthwith place the disqualification petitions before the Speaker for fixing a schedule of hearing (filing of pleadings, documents, personal hearing etc.) within four weeks. The single judge had clarified that if nothing was heard within four weeks, the matter would be reopened suo motu. This order was set aside by the division bench of the Telangana High Court.

The Supreme Court, in its judgment justified the single bench orders and said the division bench had erred in its orders. The Supreme Court observed that there was absolutely no occasion for the division bench to have intervened in the well-reasoned order of the single judge bench of Justice Vijaysen Reddy. The apex court also noted that there was no occasion for the Assembly secretary to have challenged the order passed by the single judge, inasmuch as nothing adverse could be found in the order.

The apex court did not consider the request of Rama Rao, Kaushik Reddy and Vivekanand, who sought the Supreme Court to decide the disqualification petitions, instead of sending the issue to the Speaker.

The Supreme Court reminded them that the Constitution Bench had consistently held that the Speaker was the authority to decide on the issue with regard to disqualification at the first instance. Hence, the apex court was not inclined to accede to the request. However, the court said, it found it appropriate to direct the Speaker to decide on the petitions within a stipulated period.

The Supreme Court clarified that the Speaker, while acting as an adjudicating authority on deciding the disqualification of defected members, did not enjoy constitutional immunity as available either under the Constitution’s Article 122 (preventing courts from intervening in parliamentary proceedings) or 212 (preventing courts from questioning the validity of proceedings in a state legislature).

CJI Gavai, delivering the judgment, pointed out that in cases of delay, “failure to issue any direction to the Speaker, in our view, would frustrate the very purpose” for which the Tenth Schedule had been brought in the Constitution. “If we do not issue any direction, it will amount to permitting the Speaker to repeat the widely criticised situation of ‘operation successful, patient died,” Justice Gavai said.

The Chief Justice of India noted that though, “we (the courts) do not possess any advisory jurisdiction, it is for Parliament to consider whether the mechanism of entrusting the Speaker/Chairman the important task of deciding the issue of disqualification on the ground of defection, is serving the purpose of effectively combating political defections or not.”

“If the very foundation of our democracy and the principles that sustain it are to be safeguarded, it will have to be examined whether the present mechanism is sufficient or not. However, at the cost of repetition, we observe that it is for Parliament to take a call on that” the CJI observed.

Justice Gavai reminded that Parliament, after noticing the evil of political defections, had found it appropriate to amend the Constitution in 1985 to introduce the anti-defection Bill. The apex court recalled that Parliament, during the elaborate discussions in both Houses on delegating adjudication authority on disqualification petitions to the Speaker/Chairman, was also conscious of the long delays.

“Parliament decided to entrust the important question of adjudication of disqualification petitions, on account of defection, to the Speaker/Chairman expecting him to decide them fearlessly and expeditiously. The only purpose… was to avoid dilly-dallying in the courts of law or the Election Commission’s office” the apex court noted.

It also pointed out that with the experience of over 30 years of working of the anti-defection law, “the question that we will have to ask ourselves is as to whether the trust which Parliament entrusted in the high office of the Speaker or the Chairman of avoiding delays in deciding the issue with regard to disqualification has been adhered to by the incumbents or not.”

The Supreme Court also noted, “We do not need to answer the question, since facts in various cases on implementation of the anti-defection law before the courts provide the answer.”

The bench headed by CJI Gavai noted that facts of the case raised by the BRS leaders were similar to ‘Keisham Meghachandra Singh v. Speaker of the Manipur Assembly’. In that case the Speaker had refused to decide the disqualification petitions before him expeditiously, and no notices had been issued to the defected MLAs till the petition was filed by opponents before the court.

At that time, the court had observed that one could not expect that the Speaker would decide these petitions the life of the Assembly of five years expired.

The court highlighted the delay by the Telangana Speaker, pointing out that when the disqualification applications had been received on March 18 and April 2, 2024, the Speaker’s office had issued notices to some of the defected MLAs on January 16, 2025, only after a case was filed before the Supreme Court.