Hyderabad: A division bench of the Telangana High Court on Tuesday reserved orders in the appeals filed by the Assembly secretary challenging the single judge’s orders in the petitions filed BRS MLAs seeking directions to the Speaker to decide the applications to disqualify defectors.The single judge on September 9 had directed the Assembly secretary to forthwith place the disqualification petitions before the Speaker for fixing a schedule of hearing within four weeks from September 9. The judge directed the secretary to inform the Registrar (Judicial), High Court. If nothing was heard within four weeks, the court would reopen the batch of writ petitions suo motu and pass appropriate orders.Assembly secretary Dr V. Narasimha Charyulu in the writ appeals sought suspension of the orders of the single judge on the ground that the petitioners — BRS legislators Padi Kaushik Reddy and K.P. Vivekanand —had made false allegations on presumptions and assumptions that the Speaker would not adjudicate upon their disqualification petitions and that the Supreme Court had made it ample clear that the Speaker could not pass orders at pre-decisional stage.A division bench comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J. Sreenivas Rao heard the appeals for more than one week.Advocate-General A. Sudarshan Reddy, on behalf of the Assembly secretary, Ravindra Srivastava on behalf of law secretary, advocates Sriraghuram, Mayur Reddy, Jandyala Ravi Shankar on behalf of the defected MLAs, advocate Gandra Mohan Rao for the BRS MLAs, and advocate J. Prabhakar representing BJP Legislature Leader A. Maheshwar Reddy submitted arguments in the last seven days.Advocate-General Sudarshan Reddy argued that in the case of MLA Errabelli Dayakar Rao during the previous government, the High Court had said that it could not interfere with the Speaker’s duties. He also argued that Supreme Court judgment in ‘Keisham Meghachandra Singh’ was not applicable as the BRS MLAs had filed their petitions within 10 days of filing a complaint in the Speaker’s office. He argued that the judgment given by the single judge is not reasonable.
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