Expelled MLAs file contempt case

Expelled Congress MLAs Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and S.A. Sampath Kumar on Tuesday moved a contempt petition against state law secretary Niranjan Rao and secretary to the Legislative Assembly V. Narasimhacharyulu, seeking to punish them under the Contempt of Courts Act for not restoring their membership in the Assembly.

They submitted that a single judge of the High Court had allowed their petition on April 17 by setting aside the resolution of the Telangana Assembly expelling them from the House and the consequential notifications declaring the Alampur and Nalgonda assembly constituencies vacant.

They also brought to the notice of the court that a division bench of this court had dismissed an appeal by the TRS MLAs challenging the single judge order holding that “it is only the State Legislature which can prefer an appeal, if it is aggrieved by the order of the Single Judge interdicting its decision to expel the two MLAs as members of the House.”

The expelled MLAs also reminded that during the hearing of the writ and also appeal, the additional advocate general had appeared on behalf of the state government though the state government claims that it has nothing to do with the expulsion of the MLAs.

They contended that keeping in view of the above facts the entire issue of expulsion and subsequent orders of the single judge and the division bench is very much in the knowledge of the secretaries of the law and the Legislative Assembly.

They informed the court that as per the procedure, the respondents have to prefer the appeal within 30 days from the date of the order of the single judge and if they did not prefer appeal, the order of the single judge became final.

Stating that both the secretaries have intentionally avoided the remedy of the appeal and have disobeyed the orders of the High Court.