The Telangana Congress has requested Assembly Speaker S. Madhusudanachary to take steps to revive the membership of the two MLAs K. Venkata Reddy and S.A. Sampath Kumar whose expulsion from the House has been set aside by the court.
Opposition leader K. Jana Reddy, TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and other senior leaders expressed concern that the legislature was yet to revive and restore the membership and extend the privileges and protocol of the two members who were suspended from the House on March 13.
The Congress leaders lamented that the House, which expelled the two members on an “erroneous view” of the fact and law, however, failed to restore the membership of the expelled MLAs.
“Fifty days after the judgement by the single judge, neither the Assembly nor the State government preferred an appeal against it allowing the judgement to attain its finality,” Mr. Jana Reddy said. He along with Mr. Uttam Kumar Reddy led a delegation of the Congress members that submitted a memorandum to the Speaker seeking implementation of the court’s order on the issue.
The meeting witnessed heated exchanges between the Speaker and Congress leader A. Revanth Reddy with the latter questioning the delay on the part of the legislature to implement the order given by the single judge. Mr. Jana Reddy, however, pacified the member claiming that the party would embark on the legal course once more if the order was not implemented.
Speaking to reporters later, Mr. Jana Reddy said in spite of specific instructions by the single judge, the legislature website was not updated with the information of the two members for whom privileges and protocol was yet to be extended.
Though petitions were submitted to the Legislature Secretary in this regard, no action had been initiated on the pretext that the Speaker was yet to take a decision. “The failure of the Legislature Secretary to respond is nothing but a contemptuous act,” Mr. Jana Reddy said.