NEW DELHI: Noting that the application to disqualify three BRS MLAs who allegedly defected to Congress is pending for almost a year before the Telangana assembly speaker, Supreme Court on Tuesday asked why there no decision has been taken one way or the other. The court wondered if the decision would be taken after the assembly’s term ends.
Hearing a plea filed by BRS MLAs seeking the court’s direction to the speaker to decide within four weeks, a bench of Justices B R Gavai and A G Masih said it is prima facie of the view that the court can interfere if the decision is not taken within a reasonable time.
SC: Why hasn’t Telangana Speaker set a deadline?
The Supreme Court bench said certain observations passed by SC in the Subhash Desai case (Shiv Sena rift matter) favour BRS which seeks disqualification of its MLAs.
“As on today, how much time has passed since the first application? It appears to be a year. Why has not the Speaker’s office set a deadline for deciding these petitions?” the court observed.
Senior advocates C A Sundaram and D Seshadri Naidu, appearing for BRS MLAs seeking the disqualification, told the bench high court had in Sept 2024 asked the Speaker to fix a hearing schedule within four weeks but no notice was issued until Jan this year.
They said one of the defected MLAs had even contested the Lok Sabha polls on Congress ticket and lost and continued to be MLA.
They said only after SC passed observation in an earlier hearing, the Speaker issued notice on Feb 13 to MLAs and granted them three weeks time to respond. But that deadline passed and there is no clarity on the status of the disqualification petitions, they told the bench. The hearing will resume on April 3.
Objecting to the delay on the part of the Speaker in taking decision, the apex court had earlier said the rights of political parties could not be permitted to be frustrated in a democracy