Telangana: Congress hires Kapil Sibal to ensure disqualification of defectors
Hyderabad: The Congress high command has roped in top advocate Kapil Sibal and is seeking help of other legal luminaries to ensure disqualification of legislators who defected from the party in TS.
Of the 47 MPs, MLAs and MLCs who defected from the Congress, TD, YSRC and BSP to the ruling TRS, Congress lost one MP, seven MLAs and 11 MLCs so far. The party has decided to move Supreme Court and the case is expected to come up for hearing on July 1.
The TS Legislative Assembly Speaker and the Legislative Council Chairman are yet to take action on complaints by these parties seeking disqualification of their legislators under the Anti-Defection Law.
TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and Leader of the Opposition in Legislative Council Mohd Ali Shabbir will leave for New Delhi to speak Mr Sibal and other advocates in this regard.
“Congress hired Kapil Sibal to represent the case. TD and YSRC too have hired their own lawyers. We are going to Delhi to provide all information and documents in this regard,” Mr Shabbir Ali told DC on Monday.
These political had moved the Supreme Court last year after waiting for the Speaker to act. The SC had asked petitioners to first approach the High Court.
As advised, Errabelli Dayakar Rao (TD) and Sampath Kumar (Congress) moved the HC seeking a direction to Speaker to expedite hearing of the disqualification petitions.
The HC permitted counsel for the petitioners to serve notice to the Speaker seeking his stance on the petitions, but the Speaker refused to accept the notice.
The Speaker and the Council chairman are empowered to take action under anti-defection law and courts generally refrain from intervening in such cases.
A division bench division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyothi Sengupta and Justice Sanjay Kumar dealt with the case after a single judge dismissed pleas saying court will not intervene since the matter was yet to be adjudicated by legislature.
Notices were sent to the Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary and Council chairman K. Swami Goud and eight legislators--five Congress MLCs K.R. Amos, V. Bhupal Reddy, N. Rajalingam, T. Bhanu Prasad Rao and S. Jagadeeswar Reddy and 3 TD MLAs -- Talasani Srinivas Yadav, Teegala Krishna Reddy and Ch. Dharma Reddy. However, there was no reply. In the meantime, more legislators defected to the TRS.
