The Telangana High Court on Friday ordered issue of notices to Telangana Legislative Council chairperson and others in a writ petition filed seeking disqualification of four MLCs of the Congress who merged the party with the TRS in the Council.
Among those to receive notices are the four legislators, M.S. Prabhakar Rao, K. Damoder Reddy, T. Santosh Kumar and Akula Lalitha along with Congress MLC Mohammed Shabbir Ali who earlier petitioned the Council chairperson to disqualify the four MLCs. A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Rajasheker Reddy passed the direction and posted it after four weeks for next hearing.
The petitioners G. Malleswara Rao and C. Babajee sought to declare the bulletin issued by the Legislative Council on December 21, 2018 recognising the merger of Congress Legislature party with that of TRS Legislature party in the Council. According to the petitioners, the “merger was a fraud on the Constitution”. The petitioners submitted to the court to immediately suspend the operation of the bulletin and restrain Mr. Prabhakar, Mr. Damoder, Mr. Santosh and Ms. Lalitha from functioning as MLCs till the petition was disposed.
They said the Supreme Court had earlier ruled that Speakers or chairpersons of Legislature cannot recognise merger of parties without first deciding upon the disqualification petitions pending before them. The apex court also said that any merger should be that of original parties. In the present case, a Congress MLC Shabbir Ali had already petitioned the chairperson to disqualify the four MLCs on the ground of defection, they stated.