Hyderabad: The Telangana high court on Tuesday reserved its judgment after concluding hearing into the appeals filed by the assembly secretary challenging the order of a single judge seeking a time frame for the speaker to decide on the disqualification pleas against turncoat BRS MLAs.
Appearing for the assembly secretary, advocate general A Sudarshan Reddy argued against any deadline for the speaker on the grounds that it was contrary to the spirit of the 10th schedule of the Constitution on one hand and, on the other, it went against the five-judge bench judgment of the Supreme Court.
“It is not correct in terms of judicial discipline to say that a subsequent order of a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court would prevail just because it allowed the intervention of courts at a pre-decisional stage,” he said.
“Until a seven judge bench or a larger bench reverses the five-judge bench order, the latter’s verdict would continue to rule the field,” the AG added.
The AG pointed out that the BRS, which had supported defections for 10 years while in govt and even argued against any intervention by the courts in the job of a Speaker, had rushed to courts within 10 days of filing disqualification pleas before the speaker.
He said that the single judge ought to have seen the fate of the previous decade’s pleas seeking action against defectors who switched over to BRS which are still pending before the apex court. Instead, he chose to intervene in the job of the current speaker without giving him enough time, the AG said.
“Let the speaker take stock of the situation and he should be given sufficient time,” Sudarshan Reddy said.
After the arguments, a bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J Sreenivas Rao reserved its judgment.
