Hyderabad: TS Assembly Speaker S. Madhusudana Chary on Saturday held consultations with advocate-general K. Ramakrishna Reddy on the issuance of notices by higher courts in the disqualification of legislators case. Though the Supreme Court, while allowing an appeal petition by Congress MLA S.A. Sampath Kumar, decided to issue notices to both the Speaker and the seven Congress MLAs, it was noted in the meeting that so far, no notices were received by the Speaker’s office.
However, notices were issued to TS Legislature Secretariat (Secretary) by High Court in a separate case that will come up for hearing on Monday. Mr Reddy told Mr Chary about the various courts issuing notices to Speakers and cited the instance of the Kihoto Hollohan Vs Zachelly case of 1992 before Supreme Court which dealt with issuance of notices to Speakers on petitions filed with regard to disqualification of legislators on the grounds of defection. The SC ruled that at preliminary stages of hearing, there was no need to issue notices to a Speaker.
The A-G said the same verdict can be quoted by the respective law officers while appearing before the courts. It was decided to bring the same to the notice of the higher courts and then take a decision after that. It was also decided to wait for the notices issued by the Supreme Court and meet again to discuss follow-up action.
