Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Wednesday directed the Speaker of the Telangana State Legislative Assembly to take a decision regarding petitions pending before him, seeking disqualification of 12 Telugu Desam MLAs who had joined the TRS, within three months and pass appropriate orders.
Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao granted the interim order to a petition by TD MLA and Floor Leader A. Revanth Reddy questioning the Bulletin issued on March 10, 2016, by the TS Legislature Secretariat merging TS TD Legislature Party with TRS Legislature Party in the TS Assembly.
The petitioner contended that the Speaker, who was also Chairman of the Tribunal under X Schedule, only had jurisdiction to decide the issue of disqualification but not to decide the merger of a political party independently as per the Constitution.
The petitioner informed the court that applications for seeking disqualification of MLAs E. Dayakar Rao, Talasani Srinivasa Yadav, G. Sayanna, T. Prakash Goud, Teegala Krishna Reddy, Manchireddy Kishan Reddy, Madhavaram Krishna Rao, K.P. Vivekananda, Challa Dharma Reddy, S. Rajender Reddy, Maganti Gopinath, and Arekapudi Gandhi were pending for more than a year before the Speaker.
The judge found that the action of the Speaker to accept the merger of the 12 defected MLAs of the TD with the TRS and allow them to sit along with the TRS members was prima facie contrary to ratio of decisions of the courts in both the cases.
Speaker’s move amenable: High Court
Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao, relying on the judgment of the Punjab and Haryana Court in the Kuldeep Bishnoi case and decisions of the Supreme Court in Rajendra Singh Rana and others case, observed that the Speaker, while exercising the power under Paragraph 6 of the X Schedule, was acting as a Tribunal amenable to judicial review, as held by the Supreme Court and Punjab and Haryana Court in both the cases.
The Judge said, “I am inclined to issue a direction to the Speaker to decide the applications for disqualification of the defected MLAs within three months from today. Such a direction was issued in the Kuldeep Bishnoi case by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana to the Speaker of Haryana Legislature and was affirmed by the Supreme Court too.”
The Judge referred the decision of the Constitution bench of the Supreme Court in the Kihoto Hollohan case wherein in was held that a decision of the Speaker as per Paragraph-6 (1) of the X Schedule was not a decision of the House nor was it subject to approval of the House. It operated independently of the House therefore did not have immunity under Article 212 from judicial scrutiny.
He said, “For the aforesaid reason, I am of the view that the decisions of the Supreme Court in M.S.M. Sharma versus Dr Shree Krishna Sinha, Indira Nehru Gandhi versus Raj Narayan and Ramdas Athawale versus Union of India and others cases regarding immunity of internal proceedings of the House are not applicable to the present case.”
