HYDERABAD: Justice Shameem Akhtar of the Telangana High Court on Wednesday issued notices to the Secretary, Telangana Legislative Assembly and Secretary to Legislative Secretariat directing them to furnish reasons for the suspension of three BJP MLAs by Thursday.
Justice Akhtar was dealing with the writ petition filed by three suspended MLAs Raghunandan Rao, Eatala Rajeder and T Raja Singh challenging their suspension, seeking a direction to participate in the session and furnish a copy of the resolution of their suspension.
The court however refused to direct the authorities concerned to serve the copy of the resolution to the petitioners without hearing them.D. Prakash Reddy, senior counsel for the petitioners, submitted video clips and newspaper reports of the Assembly proceedings before the court to establish that the three MLAs were suspended without any valid reason.
He said that there is a provision in the law, where the suspended MLAs of a particular party can be reinstated when a member of the same party moves a resolution, but in this case, all the MLAs of BJP have been suspended and no one is left to move such a motion.
Counsel informed the court that in order to suspend members, the Speaker has to name the members to be suspended after a motion is moved. In this instance however, the Speaker immediately suspended the petitioners after the motion was moved, which he said was in violation of the Assembly rules.
He said that the suspension was depriving people of their rights and hence is a serious threat to democracy. Advocate General BS Prasad argued that the courts cannot interfere into Assembly proceedings and that the authenticity of the video clip submitted by the petitioners has to be verified.
After hearing the AG, Justice Akhtar said that “the proceedings in the Assembly have been recorded by your officials also. The petitioners have come with the allegation that substantial illegality was committed in the Assembly. You have to explain by placing on record rebutting their allegations” and adjourned the hearing to a later date.