No poll notification for three MLC seats: Telangana high court to EC

HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court on Thursday directed the Election Commission not to issue a poll notification to those MLC seats that have become vacant on account of disqualification orders passed by Telangana legislative council chairman.
The bench of acting chief justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and justice Shameem Akther gave this interim direction while hearing pleas by disqualified MLCs R Bhupathi Reddy and Yadav Reddy.
Following a restraint order passed by the bench in respect of Yadav Reddy asking the EC not to notify polls till May 15, the EC counsel Madhuri came forward and said they will not issue any poll notification in respect of Bhupathi Reddy too. One more disqualified MLC Ramulu Naik’s plea is pending before the bench which said it would adjudicate all three issues by May 15. Additional advocate General J Ramachandra Rao informed the court that the poll notification issued for the MLC polls did not include these three seats.
Bhupathi Reddy in his petition challenged the decision of the legislative council ‎chairman to disqualify him from his MLC post. Though I was nominated by TRS as its MLC candidate for local bodies constituency from Nizamabad, I was elected unanimously, he said. He contended that he should not be treated as a TRS candidate for the purpose of disqualification. He also challenged the validity of the rules prescribed in para 8 of the tenth schedule of the constitution that attach party tags even to unanimously elected candidates. The bench sought counter from the state and central governments and said it would give its finding on the matter soon. Bhupathi Reddy’s counsel Anand Kapoor said that on one hand, TRS is claiming that the Congress legislative wing merged itself with TRS and, on the other hand, charging Bhupathi with defecting to Congress.
Arguing the case of Yadav Reddy, senior counsel D Prakash Reddy told the court that Yadav never joined Congress as was alleged. He merely went and thanked Sonia Gandhi when she came to Telangana for granting Telangana its statehood. This need not be seen as joining the Congress party, he said. The legislative council chairman in his judgment made contradictory observations regarding this. At one para he says that the disqualification was due to defection, and at another para, he acknowledges the fact that Yadav Reddy denied having joined the Congress Party, the senior counsel said. The bench summoned the records pertaining to this episode from the legislative council.