AP & Telangana High Court grants expelled Telangana Congress MLAs partial relief

The Telangana and Andhra Pradesh High Court has passed an interim order, partially allowing one of the prayers made by expelled Telangana Congress legislators, Komati Reddy Ventkata Reddy and SA Samapth Kumar.

The duo represent the Nalgonda and Alampur assembly constituencies respectively.

The petitioners had made several interim prayers through a writ petition, which was first heard on Saturday, March 17, 2018 by Justice B Siva Sankara Rao.

Justice Rao today directed the Chief Election Commissioner not to issue notifications scheduling by-elections to the petitioner’s seats, which were announced vacant by the Legislature Secretariat of the State of Telangana for a period of six weeks.

The duo was expelled for disorderly behavior during Governor ESL Narasimhan’s joint address to both houses of Assembly on March 12, 2018. Eleven other Congress party legislators were suspended.

Pandemonium marked the Governor’s customary pre-budget address, and a headphone allegedly flung at the chair from Congress Benches, led to the Chairman of the Telanagana State Legislative Council, K Swamy Goud suffering an injury to his right eye.

The Court today directed the authorities to submit video footage of the incident leading to Goud’s injury, by March 22, 2018.

The former legislators sought relief from the Court in the form of a mandamus, declaring the action of Legislature Secretariat of the State of Telangana in expelling them from the house, and the subsequent Extraordinary Gazette notification declaring their erstwhile seats vacant, void.

The petitioner’s counsel Jandhyala Ravishankar had on Saturday argued that the resolution passed by the house expelling Reddy and Kumar, was fraught with irregularities on several fronts, and was also in violation of principles of natural justice.

Ravishankar argued that the speaker of the Assembly could not initiate action against any member for an act or omission committed during the Governor’s address, under the Legislature’s business rules, since no business could be conducted before or during the address.

It was also put forth that Articles 190 and 191 of the Constitution laid down the circumstances under which vacancies would arise in Parliament and in State Legislatures, and an expulsion under Article 194(3) was not contemplated by the Constitution makers.

It was also argued that principles of natural justice were violated by not allowing the suspended members an opportunity to present their case.

Telanagana Advocate General (AG) D Prakash Reddy rebutted each of these points today, relying on a Division Bench decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Yeshwanth Rao Meghawale v. Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly, and the ruling of a five Judge Bench of the Supreme Court in Raja Rampal v. Speaker Lok Sabha and Others.

On the basis of the judgments, Reddy pointed out that the powers and privileges vested in the Parliament and State Legislatures under article 194 (3) of the Constitution, stood independent of any other provision of law and were meant to ensure the protection, “proper functioning and self preservation of the house”.

He also added that the house could expel members who brought it into disrepute, for actions committed outside the house as well. The Raja Rampal case in which action had been instituted against those that received money outside the house in order to raise certain questions was used to illustrate the point.

On legality and principles of natural justice, the Advocate General argued that it was not for the court or any other adjudicating authority to question the wisdom of the house on matters of “correctness, validity, legality or proportionality of action taken.”

This of course provided that the privilege being exercised was a privilege that had been claimed by the House of Commons in the United Kingdom and deemed to have been correctly claimed by UK courts, on or before the 26^th of January 1950, which is when the Indian Constitution came into force.

The matter will be heard further early next week.

Read the petition below.