Hyderabad: In a major relief to bureaucrats and Speaker A. Madhusudhana Chary, a division bench of Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice A. Rajasheker Reddy stayed all further proceedings in the contempt case filed by former expelled MLAs of the Congress, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and A. Sampath Kumar.
On Monday, while hearing contempt appeal petitions filed by law secretary V. Niranjan Rao and Assembly secretary V. Narasimhacharyulu, the bench issued interim stay orders on all proceedings in the contempt case before the single judge.
Special counsel for the appellant submitted that the single judge was pursuing matters beyond the jurisdiction of the court.
He said that even after the cases related to the expulsion of the MLAs were closed by a division bench, the single judge was continuing the contempt cases against the law and Assembly secretaries and the police personnel.
In the separate appeals, Mr Rao and Mr Narasimhacharyulu urged the division bench to intervene and to set aside the single judge order in the contempt cases.
On February 15, Justice B. Sivasankara Rao, while dealing with a contempt case by expelled former MLAs, had directed the Registrar, Judicial, to take into custody both the law and assembly secretaries and later release them on execution of personal bonds.
Both the secretaries were issued Form-1 Notice, which they had ignored and they later appeared in person.
The judge further issued fresh notices to Director General of Police, and the superintendents of Nalgonda and Gadwal Jogulamba police for not resuming the security cover of the Congress politicians in spite of his orders.
The judge had further issued contempt notice to Mr Chary, for refusing to acknowledge his notice.
