Single judge order challenged in Telangana Congress MLAs expulsion case

A storm was created when a single judge of the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh High Court, held that the court could interfere in the way business was conducted by the State Legislative Assembly. Justice B Sivasankara Rao was, however, at pains to emphasise that such interventions had an extremely narrow scope.

Justice Rao had ruled that the expulsion of two Congress Legislators by the Telangana Legislature was invalid as principles of natural justice had not been followed. This had sparked an outrage among members of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).

Now an appeal against this order has been preferred by twelve TRS legislators. None of them was a respondent in the petition for restitution filed by the Congress MLAs, putting them on the somewhat shaky legal ground, in so far as whether they would qualify as ‘necessary parties’ to the appeal.

A Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice K Vijayalakshmi, said on Friday, April 20, that they would first adjudicate on this aspect before going into the merits of the appeal.

The appeal claims that the single judge committed a slew of errors in the application of the principle of natural justice and interpretation of service law amongst others.

“The learned single judge ought to have seen that where the admitted and undisputed facts, only one conclusion is possible, and application of principles of natural justice would be a futile exercise and empty formality”

“The learned single judge erred in importing service law jurisprudence, particularly, punishing a delinquent employee without the issuance of a show cause notice. The learned judge misdirected himself by not looking into the distinction made out in the two instances, one relating to the punishment of a delinquent employee and punishment inflicted on Members of Legislative Assembly”

As to whether they constitute necessary parties in the appeal, they have argued that they had been part of the resolution that expelled their colleagues and are, hence, qualified.

Senior Counsel CS Vaidyanathan appeared today for the TRS legislators and said that the matter required the urgent consideration of the Court, to which the Bench asked what was the urgency given that the house was not in session.

The matter will be now heard on April 26, 2018.

Read the petition