Defection case crawls; court gives ‘final’ chance
Telangana High Court told Congress-side respondents to file counters in the BRS disqualification challenge. ‘Final opportunity’, two weeks — a deadline national parties usually treat as advice.
The High Court listed the connected disqualification cases for hearing after granting a final opportunity to file counters.
The Telangana High Court is hearing BRS petitions that challenge Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar’s rejection of disqualification pleas against MLAs accused of moving to the Congress. In the latest corroborated step on June 25, a division bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G.M. Mohiuddin gave Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender and Jogulamba Gadwal MLA Bandla Krishna Mohan Reddy a final opportunity to file counter‑affidavits, with two weeks for them and one week for replies. The bench also asked parties to file written submissions and told the Speaker’s counsel to keep original records ready, directing that connected matters involving all ten MLAs be listed together — a consolidation the Congress would rather avoid when the facts line up side by side.
One petition, filed by BJP floor leader Alleti Maheshwar Reddy, specifically challenges the Speaker’s March 11 order rejecting disqualification against Danam under Paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule. His case points to Danam joining the Congress and contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket as evidence of “voluntarily giving up” BRS membership. The Speaker’s stand, as reported in March, was that the petitioners hadn’t proved defection; that finding is what the High Court is now reviewing, not endorsing.
The batch was posted to July 22. From the material available, what happened that day isn’t on the record, and neither side has published their counters. Until the Congress MLAs put their version on paper, ‘final opportunity’ reads like the court being patient with the party that benefited from the switch.