The Telangana High Court on Wednesday passed a direction to serve notices to the Telangana Assembly Speaker, the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Legislature Secretariat in a writ petition challenging the recent merger of Congress Legislature Party with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi Legislature Party in the Assembly.

Tagging this writ petition filed by Congress MLA Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy with two others, a Division Bench posted the matter for hearing after four weeks.

Along with the Assembly Speaker, who is being served notice by the virtue of he being the head of the Tribunal under X Schedule of the Constitution, 12 MLAs, who won the Assembly elections on Congress ticket in December last and joined the ruling TRS six days ago, would also be served notices.

The Division Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Shameem Akther had already issued notices in two writ petitions, which it heard on Tuesday.

In the first petition filed by Congress leader Shabbir Ali, the Legislative Council Chairman and four MLCs who were elected on the Congress ticket and joined the TRS in December last were given notices.

Disqualification sought

The second petition too was filed by Mr. Vikramarka and Mr. Reddy earlier seeking direction to the Assembly Speaker to disqualify 10 of their MLAs, who announced that they would join the TRS. In this petition, the 10 MLAs were served notices.

The Assembly Speaker, the Election Commission and the Legislature Secretariat were the common respondents in the second writ petition as well as the fresh one, which was heard on Wednesday.

Two more MLAs – G. Venkata Ramana Reddy and Rohit Reddy – were added as the respondents in the new petition as they too eventually joined the TRS along with 10 other MLAs, who first joined the treasury benches.

The petitioners contended that notifying the 12 MLAs as TRS legislators and allotting them seats along with TRS MLAs was illegal and against the Constitutional provisions.

They pointed out that they had already filed a caveat before the Assembly Speaker to give a notice to them before the 12 MLAs were inducted into the TRS.