Court seeks counters on CLP-TRSLP merger

The Telangana High Court recently issued notices to file counter affidavits in four weeks to the Tribunal under X Schedule of the Constitution of India in the petition challenging the merger of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) with Telangana Rashtra Samithi Legislature Party (TRSLP) in the Legislative Council and Assembly. 

The Legislative Council Chairman, Assembly Speaker, Legislature Secretary, Election Commission of India Secretary and the MLCs and MLAs concerned have been asked to file counter affidavits. The court also directed the petitioner to file his rejoinder, if any, in four weeks thereafter. The court pointed out that no counter affidavits had been filed since the past two years.

A division bench of the court comprising Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Viijaysen Reddy is dealing with the petitions filed in 20a19 by Congress leader and MLC Mohd Ali Shabbir, who contended that the Council Chairman or the Assembly Speaker were not competent to decide the merger of the two parties, as it would be contrary to provisions of X Schedule of the Constitution.

The petitioner’s counsel, Jandhyala Ravi Shankar,  sought court direction to the Tribunal to first decide the disqualification petitions pending against the respondents — MLCs MS Prabhakar Rao, K Damodar Reddy, T Santhosh Kumar and A Lalitha — as expeditiously as possible. The bench posted the matter to August 10 for hearing.