Advocate-General of Telangana resigns

Telangana Advocate-General D. Prakash Reddy on Monday resigned, forwarding his letter to Governor E. S. L. Narasimhan and Chief Secretary S. K. Joshi. He was appointed to the post on July 19 last.

Though the letter did not assign any reason for his resignation — it merely thanked the Governor for giving him the opportunity — sources said Mr. Reddy was not happy with developments in the court case relating to the expulsion of two Congress MLAs from the Legislative Assembly.

Mr. Reddy was said to have orally expressed willingness to produce to the court video footage of the incident involving the hurling of headphones by the MLAs — Mr. Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and Mr. S. A. Sampath Kumar — at the Governor on the first day of the current budget session of legislature.

Mr. Reddy addressed a letter to the Legislature Secretary to produce the video footage but the latter was said to have cited an order of a Parliamentary Standing Committee, issued in 1957, which was binding on all State Assemblies, and forbids them from producing any material evidence to court without the express resolution of the House.

The requirement of House resolution was taken to the notice of the High Court by Advocate-General J. Ramachandra Rao when it went into the plea of the MLAs to stay their expulsion. The court conceded the request of Mr. Rao to grant time for the same till March 27. He told The Hindu that an adjournment would be sought again since the House was yet to pass the resolution.