HC serves notices to 22 defected YSRC legislators

Senior counsel tells bench that defected members were laughing at the court

The Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday directed the four ministers of AP who had defected from the YSR Congress to explain under which authority they have been continuing in the Cabinet.

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice K. Vijaya Lakshmi issued notices to 18 MLAs of YSRC who joined the Telugu Desam along with four ministers C. Adinarayana Reddy, S. Krishna Ranga Rao, N. Amarnath Reddy and Bhuma Akhila Priya.

The bench was dealing with the PIL by Mr A. Venkata Rambabu, former MLA seeking to disqualify 22 MLAs including four ministers for joining the ruling Telugu Desam without resigning from the YSRC.

Mr C.V. Mohan Reddy, senior counsel appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the court could straight away disqualify them in view of the legal position that Para (2) of 10th Schedule of the Constitution that barred persons who have defected to continue as members of the legislature.

Stating that several petitions were also moved earlier against the 22 MLAs and the four ministers but they had not been listed for hearing, the senior counsel told the bench that defected members were laughing at the court.

Reacting to this, the bench said that currently there were 3.25 lakhs cases pending in the High Court and every month 5,000 cases were added and in this situation they were unable to do anything for the delay.

The bench said, “Everyone feels that his case is important, in such a situation how can the court fix the priority, let the MLAs laugh. We can do nothing in this regard.”

Mr Mohan Reddy informed the court that they had complained to the Speaker of AP seeking to disqualify the defected members, but the Speaker had not even issued notices to the members. He said that he was unable to understand how the four members were enjoying ministerial posts when the defection was unconstitutional.

The bench said, “We will issue notices to the ministers and other respondent MLAs to seek their explanation.”

The bench issued notices to the four ministers and MLAs B. Rajasekhar Reddy, A. Chand Basha, G. Ravi Kumar, Jaleel Khan, P. David Raju, Jyothula Nehru, P. Sunil Kumar, V. Subba Rao, S.V. Mohan Reddy, T. Jayaramulu, P. Rama Rao, K. Sarveswara Rao, M. Ashok Reddy, K. Venkata Ramana, M. Mani Gandhi, G. Eswari and V. Rajeswari.

The bench also issued notices to the law secretary of AP and secretary to AP Assembly and directed the MLAs, ministers and official respondents to file their counter affidavits within two weeks.