Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday issued notices to 22 MLAs of the YSR Congress, inclu-ding four ministers in the AP Cabinet, who switched over to the ruling Telugu Desam without resigning from their parent party. A notice has been to the AP Assembly secretary also.
A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Rangan-athan and Justice K. Vijaya Lakshmi was dealing with a PIL filed by YSRC leader and MLA A. Ramakrishna Reddy seeking disqualification of the 22 MLAs, including ministers C. Adinarayana Reddy, S. Krishna Ranga Rao, N. Amarnath Reddy and Bhuma Akhila Priya.
He said the MLAs and the ministers had indul-ged in an act of defection by joining the TD without resigning from the YSRC.
He contended that as per Para (2) of 10th Sche-dule of the Constitution, those who had indulged in defection could not continue as MLAs.
Counsel for the petitioner Ponnavolu Sudh-akar Reddy said one of the defected MLAs admitted on TV channels that they had received money from the the ruling party for joining it. This kind of a defection would end only when courts intervened, he added.
Maintaining that this kind of a defection should not be allowed, the bench questioned whether the petitioner’s party encouraged any defections so far and had allowed any MLA from outside to join it.
Counsel replied that the YSRC had not allowed any defections. It allowed a ruling party MLA to join it only after he resigned his MLA post. He told the court that though they had lodged a complaint with the Speaker seeking action against the defected MLAs, no action was taken.
When the bench prepared to issue notices to the respondent MLAs, advocate-general Damm-alapati Srinivas brought to the notice of the bench that the petitioner also made some of the MPs as parties to the petition. The bench told the petitioner to delete the names of the MPs from the plea.
Cockfight: Netas list given to High Court
The AP police on Tuesday submitted the list of the politicians, who participated in cockfight during Sankranti in East and West Godavari and Krishna districts.
AP DGP M. Malakond-aiah submitted the list stating that Kakinada MP Thota Narasimham, Pith-apuram MLA V. Satyanarayana Varma, Mummidi-varam MLA Datla Subba Raju, Pithapuram municipal chairman K. Chinna Rao and ZPTC B. Chait-anya Rajesh Kumar participated in cockfight in E. Godavari. Ungutur MLA G. Veeranjaneyulu, Polavaram MLA V. Sriniv-asa Rao had participated in the cockfight from West Godavari, while MLAs Bode Prasad (Penamal-uru) Bonda Uma Mahe-swara Rao (Vijayawada Central) MLCs Y Venkata Babu , Budda Venkatesw-ara Rao and several ZPTCs and MPTCs participated in Krishna district.
After perusing the list, the bench asked the petitioners to file their response by April 24.
