Justice B. Sivasankara Rao of Hyderabad High Court on Friday posted to Monday the hearing of contempt proceedings in Congress MLAs’ expulsion case.
Declining to give one more week time sought by the counsels for Telangana Legislature Secretary and Law Secretary, the judge said he can only consider their request for further hearing.
He reminded senior counsel Vedula Venkataramana and Additional Advocate General J. Ramchandra Rao that one week time was given to them after they said they were persuading the two Secretaries to implement the judge’s order.
The counsels told the judge that they had filed an appeal before the Division Bench over the judge order setting aside expulsion of the two Congress MLAs Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and S.A. Sampath Kumar. The counsel for the MLAs Jandhyala Ravi Shankar said that the Bench did not admit the appeal. No order was passed either, he said.
Unless the Bench stayed the order, the hearing on the contempt proceedings cannot be stopped, the judge said. The judge turned down the repeated requests for more time and recalled that he had given five weeks time for the respondents after the contempt plea was filed.
When the counsels sought some more time to express their response, the judge initially gave an hour’s time. However, the counsels requested time till Monday. Granting the time the judge said the matter was being posted to Monday. for drafting notices to the respondents before admission of the contempt plea.
