HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday made it clear that it has the power to set aside the ‘merger’ of the CLP into TRSLP in case of any illegality on the authorities’ part. A division Bench of the court said there was no urgency to hear the petition filed by Congress MLAs Bhatti Vikramarka and N Uttam Kumar Reddy, seeking direction to the Assembly Speaker to first decide the disqualification petitions pending against some of the Congress MLAs who have defected to TRS party before passing any orders of merging the Congress with TRS in the State Assembly. The Bench decided to hear the petition on June 11.
The Bench said the above when the petitioners’ counsel informed the court that four Congress MLCs had earlier joined TRS, and the merger of the Congress Legislative Party in the Council into TRSLP had already taken place. He said this showed why the petition filed Reddy and Vikramarka had to be heard soon.
Another Congress leader and MLC Mohd Ali Shabbir has already filed a petition challenging the Council Chairman’s decision to merge the two bodies. The Bench had decided to hear the petition in June, but the petition’s counsel insisted that it be heard in the first week of June.
After hearing the submissions of the petitioners’ counsel, the Bench said that whatever action might be taken by the ruling (TRS) party, it has the power to set it aside, under provisions in Article 226 of the Constitution, if the court feels it was done illegally.
Referring to the pending petitions filed by three TRS party MLCs who joined Congress — S Ramulu Naik, K Yadava Reddy and R Bhoopathi Reddy — challenging their disqualification from the MLC posts, the Bench said that the three petitions would be heard during summer vacation on May 8.
On this occasion, Justice Chauhan also expressed concern over the acute shortage of judges in the HC. “Judges are human beings and not robots. They cannot be expected to work 24 hours a day. Due to huge pending work, they have agreed to work during the vacation,” he said, and asked the advocates not to insist the court to hear their cases at an early date.