HYDERABAD:A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday asked the petitioner's counsel to tell whether there was any prohibition or guidelines in appointing MP Gutha Sukender Reddy as chairman of Telangana Rashtra Rythu Samanvaya Samithi (Telangana state farmers' coordination committee). It asked how the court could pass orders when there were no such guidelines.
The bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice K Vijaya Lakshmi was dealing with a PIL filed by Goli Madhusudhan Reddy, advocate and BJP Kisan Morcha president, challenging the appointment of Gutha as TRRSS chairman. As per the Supreme Court judgment in Jaya Bachchan's case, Gutha's appointment clearly amounts to holding an office of profit which disqualifies him as a MP, the petitioner noted.
Petitioner's counsel B Rachna Reddy told the court that the respondent MP had accepted the post of Samithi chairman which was an office of profit, without resigning from the membership of the Parliament. In fact, he won the MP seat on Congress party ticket, but had later joined the ruling party when offered the above chairman post.
Intervening, the bench asked whether there were any restrictions or prohibition for appointing a MP as chairman of the above samithi. As per the Supreme Court judgment, if the MP was placed in the office of profit post, then he had to lose his parliament membership. However, in the present case, there was no prayer seeking his disqualification from the MP post, the bench pointed out.
In reply, the petitioner's counsel urged the court to permit her to amend the prayer. Following the plea, the bench permitted the counsel to amend the prayer and adjourned the case to next week.