Telangana: Two expelled MLAs move contempt plea against Assembly Speaker in Hyderabad High Court
The Congress leaders said the Assembly has not restored their membership even after the High Court annulled the expulsion.
Two Congress leaders who were expelled from the Telangana legislature in March moved the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday against the Assembly speaker and secretary, the Hindustan Times reported. In a contempt petition, they said the speaker and the secretary have not restored their membership of the House even though the High Court has annulled their expulsion.
Speaker S Madhusudan Chary expelled KV Reddy and SA Sampath Kumar from the Legislative Assembly in March for disrupting the proceedings of the House. The resolution to expel the two MLAs was passed by a voice vote, a day after Reddy allegedly flung his headphone in the House, injuring Legislative Council chairperson Swamy Goud.
Reddy was an MLA from Nalgonda and Kumar from Alampur. Hours after their expulsion, the state government notified the vacancies in the two constituencies and asked the Election Commission to conduct bye-elections.
The two MLAs moved the High Court against their expulsion, but the government was not able to produce video footage of the Assembly proceedings in court. On April 17, Justice B Siva Sankara Rao ruled that the expulsion was invalid as the principles of natural justice were not followed.
On June 4, the High Court dismissed a review petition by the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi and asked the speaker to restore all MLA privileges to the two leaders.
However, the two leaders have claimed that the Assembly has not yet restored their membership, and hence filed a contempt petition.
“We met the Speaker on Monday and submitted a memorandum asking him to restore our membership and all our privileges,” Reddy told the Hindustan Times. “We need to attend to the problems faced by the people in our respective constituencies. But there was no proper response from the Speaker and hence we were compelled to file the contempt petition.”