Telangana Speaker gets Supreme Court relief' on defections

Hyderabad: It appears that there will be more delay while taking a decision on the matter of disqualifying Opposition members who had defected to the TRS.

The setting up of the five-member Constitution bench to decide the power of courts to interfere in matter under consideration with the Speaker will take more time. The Chief Justice of India decides and constitutes larger benches on matters referred to by small benches. Justice R.K. Agarwal and Justice Rohington Fali Nariman had last month referred the matter of disqualification of legislators in the TS Assembly, to Chief Justice T.S. Thakur to constitute the five-member Constitution Bench.

Sources said Justice Thakur who would be retiring on January 3, 2017, had left the issue to be decided by his successor, Justice J.S. Khehar, who will be the Chief Justice of India till August 27, 2017.

Normally the Chief Justice does not decide on the setting up of larger benches, days before demitting office, sources said. This means that till the Constitution Bench is constituted, concludes its hearings and pronounces judgement, there is no chance of Telangana state Assembly Speaker initiating proceedings on the petitions filed by the legislature parties of the Congress, Telugu Desam and the YSRC seeking disqualification of their MLAs who joined the TRS.

When contacted, Mr K. Ramakrishna Reddy, Advocate-General of Telangana state, said, “The setting up of Constitution benches or larger benches is a matter to be decided by Chief Justice of India. I cannot say when he will do it.’’

Sources said that the matter of providing reservations to some Muslim groups as done by the late Y S Rajashekhar Reddy government, which was referred to a Constitution bench, was also similarly delayed.

“There are several such references by smaller benches to the CJI. Based on the importance and urgency of the matter the CJI will decide.’’ a senior advocate said. The availability of judges and time allotted for hearings by the larger bench is important in such matters. This would come as a breather for the Speaker, who has not commenced hearings on the disqualification petitions.

Telangana assembly to meet after December 14
Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Sunday deci-ded to convene Legislative Assembly and Council after December 14. The State Legislature is being reconvened to follow a parliamentary convention of meeting legislatures having three sessions in a calendar year.

The Legislature had met on August 30 to pass the GST Bill. Earlier, the Telangana Legislature had met for 16 days in the Budget Session. Together, the Legislature had met for 17 days in the last 11 months.

Taking into account the last session of August 30, the Assembly need not be convened till January 30, 2017, as per the Constitutional requ-irement of not having six months gap between two sessions. According to Article 174, “Six months shall not intervene between its last sitting in one session and the date appointed for its first sitting in the next session.”

In this backdrop, Speaker S. Madhusudana Chary and Legislature secretary S. Raja Sadaram are likely to cancel their London visit for attending the Commonwealth Parli-amentary Association meet between December 13 to 20.

“If the Assembly was reconvened on December 22 in order to allow the Speaker to visit London, the house could not run for a minimum period of one week due to ensuing the Christmas holidays,” sources said.