Taking a serious view of the failure to enforce its order of restoring membership of two Congress MLAs of Telangana, the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday passed an order to serve contempt-of-court notices on Telangana Legislature Secretary V. Narasimhacharyulu and Law Secretary V. Niranjan Rao, directing them to personally appear before it on September 17.
Justice B. Siva Sankara Rao, who passed the order, said notices would be served on Telangana Assembly Speaker D. Madhusudhana Chary and DGP M. Mahender Reddy and two other police officers seeking to know why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them as they did not comply with the HC order.
Superintendents of Police of Jogulamba-Gadwal and Nalgonda districts, Rema Rajeshwari and A.V. Ranganath respectively, are the other police officers. The judge said the Speaker’s act of withholding permission for de-notifying the expulsion amounted to wilful disobedience of the HC order.
The judge observed that the DGP ought to have directed the respective SPs to restore security cover to the MLAs since the HC set aside their expulsion order and categorically declared that they continued to be MLAs for the rest of the tenure.
The two Congress MLAs — Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and S. A. Sampath Kumar of Nalgonda and Alampur Assembly constituencies respectively — had met the DGP on May 7 and requested him to restore their personal security officers (gunmen) who were withdrawn after their expulsion. The two SPs should have considered the requests of the two legislators for revival of gunmen in the backdrop of the HC order. Citing these grounds, the judge stated that they should explain why they should not be impleaded as contemnors in the case.
The two legislators had been expelled from the House on March 13 for their behaviour during the pre-budget speech by the Governor in the Assembly on March 12.
Challenging the expulsion and the notification, the two MLAs moved the HC a week later. On April 17, the judge set aside expulsion of the two legislators and passed an order that their membership of the House be restored. As their membership was not revived, the two MLAs moved the HC.
Meanwhile, the writ appeal filed by the two Secretaries challenging the single-judge order setting aside the expulsion is scheduled to come up for hearing before a division bench headed by Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan on Friday.
