New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Telangana assembly speaker why he took about 10 months to issue notices on the petitions for the disqualification of BRS MLAs who defected to the Congress.A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih also took exception to a purported statement of Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy in the assembly that there would be no bye-elections.”If this is said on the floor of the house, your chief minister is making a mockery of the Tenth Schedule,” Justice Gavai observed. The Tenth Schedule of the Constitution relates to provisions for disqualification on the ground of defection.The bench was hearing arguments on the pleas on the alleged delay by the Telangana assembly speaker in deciding the pleas seeking the disqualification. While one of the pleas challenged the November 2024 order of the Telangana High Court on the disqualification of the three MLAs, another petition was filed over the seven remaining legislators who defected.A division bench of the high court in November last year said the legislative assembly speaker must decide the disqualification petitions against the three MLAs within a “reasonable time”.The division bench’s verdict came on the appeals against the September 9, 2024 order of a single judge. The single judge had directed the secretary of the Telangana assembly to place the petition seeking the disqualifications before the speaker for fixing a schedule of hearing within four weeks.On Wednesday, the apex court asked, “If the speaker does not at all act, then the courts in this country, which not only have a power but also a duty as a guardians of the Constitution, would be powerless?”Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the office of the speaker, said the first disqualification petition was filed on March 18, 2024 followed by two other such pleas filed on April 2 and April 8 last year, respectively.He said the first petition was filed in the high court on April 10 last year. “Is this waiting for a reasonable time?” Rohatgi asked. When the bench asked about the time taken in issuing notice on the disqualification petitions, the senior advocate referred to the pendency of matter before the high court.He said the speaker issued the notice on the disqualification petitions on January 16. “Even if they had filed a petition (in the high court) within two weeks, what took you 10 months to issue first notice?” the bench asked further.Rohatgi said notices were perhaps not issued on the disqualification petitions as the matter was pending in the high court. “Then why did you issue notice when we are seized of the matter? Why did you issue the notice? Should we now issue contempt?” Justice Gavai asked.Rohatgi referred to the dates and said a plea challenging the order of the high court’s division bench was filed in the apex court on January 15, 2025 and the speaker issued notice on the disqualification petitions on January 16.”You found it appropriate not to proceed further during the pendency of the proceedings before the high court. You found it appropriate to proceed when the matter was sub-judice before the Supreme Court,” the bench said.Justice Gavai said the high court’s single judge had only requested for deciding the schedule within four weeks. “The single judge was gracious enough only to direct that a schedule be fixed within a period of four weeks. He did not say decide it within four weeks,” the bench said.The court said it had been argued before that the power of a judicial review could be exercised by the high court only for examining the correctness of a decision and there was no decision in this case.”So, since there is no decision in the present case, the high court could not have interfered with and therefore, this court also should tie its hands away and look at the naked dance of democracy?” the bench added.If the request or direction of this court were not abided by, the bench said, the court was not powerless. “We have all the respect for the separation of powers doctrine. No difficulty about that. But when a particular constitutional provision has been made with a particular aim and objective, should the courts permit that to be frustrated?” the bench asked.The arguments would continue on April 3. On March 25, senior advocate C A Sundaram, appearing for BRS leader Padi Kaushik Reddy, argued the basic question was whether a constitutional court had the power, authority and jurisdiction to require a constitutional authority to act as per their constitutional mandate.Sundaram said it would be a “total miscarriage of justice” to say that a court was denuded of the power to ensure that an authority acted in accordance with the Constitution.On March 4, the apex court sought responses from the Telangana government and others on the pleas, saying a timely decision was the key and there could not be a case of “operation successful but patient is dead”.Seeking responses from MLAs Danam Nagender, Venkata Rao Tellam and Kadiyam Srihari, it had previously asked about the “reasonable time” for the speaker to decide pleas seeking disqualification of these MLAs.
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