High Court stays all further proceedings in Komatireddy case

HYDERABAD: In a huge relief to Assembly and law secretaries, a division bench of the Telangana High Court on Monday stayed all further proceedings in the order passed recently by a single judge in the contempt case filed by former Congress MLAs Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and SA Sampath Kumar seeking action against both the secretaries for not implementing the earlier order of the court (in restoring their assembly membership).  

The bench comprising Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan and Justice A Rajasekher Reddy was passing this interim order in contempt appeals filed by Narasimha Charyulu and Niranjan Rao challenging the single judge order. On Monday, when the contempt appeals came up for hearing before the bench, special counsel of Telangana S Sharat Kumar told the court that the single judge has been acting beyond his jurisdictional limits.

Though the division bench has earlier closed the writ appeals, the single judge was going ahead with hearing in the contempt case and issued bailable warrants against them. When they appeared before the court on February 15 the judge directed the registrar concerned to take them into custody. The judge has misused the Contempt of Court power, he argued.

After inquiring about the advocate appearing for Komatireddy and Sampath in the present case, the bench said the absence of any advocate on their behalf itself shows that they have no interest in the case. Senior counsel Vedula Venkataramana, appearing for the appellants, pointed out that both the petitioners  have lost their respective seats in the recent Assembly elections, hence they have lost interest in the present case. Taking the submissions of the special counsel into consideration, the bench stayed all further proceedings in the order passed by the single judge in contempt case.