Hyderabad: In a set back to the Telangana state government, the Hyderabad High Court on Wednesday refused to hear the appeals by the secretaries of the Telangana state Legislative Assembly and the Law department, challenging the order of the single judge in setting aside the expulsion of two Congress MLAs from the House treating them as urgent matter.
Mr J. Ramachandra Rao, additional advocate-general appearing for the Law Secretary before a division bench comprising Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice V. Ramasubramanian urged it to take up the hearing of appeals treating them as urgent matter as the contempt case against both the secretaries will come up for hearing on August 10 before the single judge.
He told the bench that the single judge is preparing to issue Form 1 notices to both secretaries and also to implead the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly as a party to the contempt case.
While reacting to the submission of the AAG, the bench enquired about the background of the case and asked the AAG about the number of days it took to file the appeals.
The AAG replied that there was 61 days of delay in filing the appeal from the date of order of the single judge.
Reacting to the reply of the AAG, the bench questioned the necessity to take up urgent hearing of the appeals when they are filed with the delay of 61 days.
Though the AAG requested for taking up the appeals for hearing at least on Thursday while citing the judgement of the Supreme Court in Raja Rampal case, the bench expressed its disinclination to hear the matter.
Wile reminding the earlier contention of the appellant that the High Court has no jurisdiction to hear the case of expulsion of MLAs, the bench told the AAG to first face the contempt case and if the single judge issues Form 1 notices then they can appeal the notices and then they will hear the case in accordance with the situation on that day.
Stating that the apathy at the implementation of the court orders would not be proper, the bench indirectly found fault with non implementation of the single judge order.
When counsel appearing for Congress MLA Mr Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and Mr SA Sampath Kumar urged the court to grant time to file their objection against the delay of filling the appeals, the bench posted the case to August 16.
Mr V Narasimhachary-ulu, Assembly secretary and Mr V. Niranjan Rao, law secretary, moved the appeals challenging the order of the single judge issued on April 17, 2018 setting aside the resolution of the Assembly expelling both MLAs from the House.
