New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday, September 21, agreed to hear on Wednesday, September 23, a plea by Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender challenging the Telangana High Court verdict that disqualified him from the state Assembly under the anti-defection law.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Nagender, mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, who agreed to take it up on Wednesday.
The High Court had on September 18 held that Nagender, elected to the Assembly on a Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) ticket, stood disqualified under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution for contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate while continuing as a sitting MLA.
The Tenth Schedule, commonly called the anti-defection law, provides that a legislator who voluntarily gives up membership of the party on whose ticket he or she was elected loses the seat in the House.
What the Telangana HC held
A division bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice GM Mohiuddin set aside the decision of Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar, who had rejected petitions seeking Nagender’s disqualification. The Speaker had on March 11 dismissed the last two pending disqualification petitions, against Kadiyam Srihari and Nagender.
The High Court ruled that Nagender stood disqualified with effect from April 23, 2024, the day he contested the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat as a Congress nominee while still a BRS legislator. It declared the Khairatabad seat vacant, clearing the way for a bypoll.
The bench held that the Speaker had failed to properly weigh the significance of Nagender contesting a parliamentary election on a Congress ticket while still holding his Assembly seat as a BRS legislator.
The bench also turned down a request from Nagender’s counsel to keep the order in abeyance so that he could file an appeal.
The petitions before the High Court were filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Alleti Maheshwar Reddy and BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy. The High Court had reserved its verdict on February 21 this year, but the pronouncement was deferred several times before it was finally delivered on September 18.
Background
Nagender won Khairatabad in the 2023 Assembly elections on a BRS ticket. He quit the BRS and joined the Congress in March 2024 in the presence of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
He was among the 10 MLAs who allegedly switched from the BRS to the Congress after the latter came to power in the state with a landslide win, and he lost the Secunderabad Lok Sabha contest to BJP’s G Kishan Reddy.
The Supreme Court had earlier directed the Telangana Speaker to decide the pending disqualification petitions against MLAs accused of defection, following which the Speaker ruled in Nagender’s favour and the petitioners moved the High Court.
Nagender is the first legislator to be disqualified from the Telangana Assembly since the state’s formation.BRS working president KT Rama Rao welcomed the high court verdict and said the remaining MLAs who had crossed over would also be disqualified soon.
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