In a relief to expelled Telangana Congress MLAs Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and S A Sampath Kumar, the Hyderabad High Court today quashed the notification issued by the Legislature Secretary expelling them from the State Assembly.
Delivering the 158-page judgment in a packed court, Justice B Siva Sankara Rao declared that the two MLAs were entitled to continue as legislators during the remaining term of their membership.
The two had last month jointly filed a petition in the high court challenging their expulsion from the assembly.
They also sought a direction to declare as illegal and unconstitutional the Legislature Secretary's action in expelling them by a resolution on March 13 and for issuing a gazette notification notifying the vacancies of Nalgonda and Alampur assembly segments.
On March 13, Reddy and Kumar were expelled from the Telangana Legislative Assembly, a day after "unruly" incidents during the governor's address to the joint sitting of the legislature.
Legislative Council Chairman K Swamy Goud had suffered an eye injury when a headphone thrown towards the podium hit him after the conclusion of the governor's address on March 12.
Separate resolutions for disciplinary action against the two members of the main opposition party were moved.
According to one of the resolutions, the "unruly" behaviour of Reddy and Kumar "amounted to affecting the dignity and decorum of the House... their continuance as member of the Assembly is untenable".
The petitioners complained that they were not given any opportunity to explain their conduct--alleged obstruction or interruption at the time of governor's address-- which was viewed seriously and became the basis for their expulsion.
The judge after hearing the petitioners and counsel for the State Law Secretary held that the petitioners were deprived of a valuable opportunity of representing their case due to non-issuance of notice before their expulsion.
On March 19, the court had directed the Election Commission not to issue any poll notification for six weeks in respect of the Nalgonda and Alampur (SC) Assembly constituencies, which were declared vacant by the state legislature.
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