SC gives last opportunity to Telangana speaker to decide on disqualification

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court gave a last warning to the Telangana Assembly speaker on Friday and said contempt action would be initiated if he fails to decide on the remaining disqualification petitions Justice Karol told senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, who appeared in the matter for the speaker, “We request you not to make reels out of it. This is what is happening. Do not do it. What is happening is, it is a new industry.”

Singhvi said the decision has been taken in one case, while the speaker is on the verge of taking a call in two other cases.The counsel for the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLAs said the speaker had sought time earlier as well and only a single meeting has so far been held by him in this regard.On January 16, the top court asked the Telangana Assembly speaker to apprise it in two weeks of the status of adjudication of the disqualification pleas against the BRS MLAs, who had defected to the ruling Congress in the southern state.

It had given two weeks to the speaker to file a status report, indicating the steps taken for the adjudication of the disqualification pleas.

Justice Karol said at the previous hearing, the speaker had sought three weeks, but the

Referring to the delay, the lawyer said municipal elections were there in the state and sought three weeks for a decision on all the pending disqualification petitions.The court had also issued a notice on a separate plea filed on behalf of the speaker’s office, seeking an extension of time by eight more weeks to decide on the disqualification pleas.

The contempt plea stems from the apex court’s July 31 last year judgment on a batch of writ petitions filed by BRS leaders K T Rama Rao, Padi Kaushik Reddy and K O Vivekanand.

The court reiterated that the speaker acts as a tribunal while deciding on the disqualification pleas under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution and consequently, does not enjoy “constitutional immunity”.