Telangana High Court Halts Swearing-In Ceremony for Two MLCs

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday put brakes on the swearing-in of M. Kodandaram and Amer Ali Khan as members of the state Legislative Council.

The court directed that status quo be maintained with regard to two vacancies of MLCs till further orders.

The interim order was passed by a bench of Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice S. Nanda on the petitions filed by BRS leaders Dasoju Sravan Kumar and Satyanarayana, challenging the rejection of their nominations by the Governor last year.

The court pronounced the order on the plea by the petitioners to stop the swearing-in till their petitions are decided by the court.

The interim order will be in force till February 8, when the petitions will be taken up for hearing.

Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on January 25 nominated Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) P:resident M. Kodandaram and journalist Amer Ali Khan as members of Legislative Council under Governor’s quota on the recommendation of the new state government.

Both Kodandaram and Amer Ali Khan had Monday gone to the Legislative Council to take oath but since Council Chairman Gutha Sukender Reddy was not available, they returned after waiting for nearly three hours.

They were informed that Sukhender Reddy was not well and they sought time for taking oath on Tuesday.

The ruling Congress alleged that Sukhender Reddy intentionally avoided administering oath as he belongs to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and the petitions by Sravan Kumar and Satyanarayana were to come up for hearing on Tuesday.

Earlier, the Governor had decided not to fill two vacant MLC seats under Governor quota till the Telangana High Court disposed off writ petitions but later made the nominations.

Sravan Kumar and Satyanarayana were nominated to the Legislative Council by the previous BRS government but the Governor had rejected the nominations. The recommendation passed by the then state Cabinet in July last year was sent to the Governor. However, she rejected the nominations on September 19 on the ground that the two were “politically aligned persons”.

The BRS leaders last month filed the petitions, challenging the Governor’s action. The petitioners contended that the decision taken by the Governor to reject the recommendations of the Council of Ministers was due to “lack of personal satisfaction” and not due to any ambiguity in the recommendation itself, which is arbitrary therefore illegal.

The petitioners called the order passed by the Governor as mala fide, arbitrary, unconstitutional and in excess of her jurisdiction.