Disqualification row: Assembly secretary submits counter to SC
Assembly secretary Narasimha Charyulu filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court, in reply to its notices asking the Speaker’s office to submit its contention on the word ‘reasonable time’ to take decision on disqualification petitions.;
Hyderabad: Assembly secretary Narasimha Charyulu filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court, in reply to its notices asking the Speaker’s office to submit its contention on the word ‘reasonable time’ to take decision on disqualification petitions.Assembly secretary Narasimha Charyulu filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court, in reply to its notices asking the Speaker’s office to submit its contention on the word ‘reasonable time’ to take decision on disqualification petitions.
The apex court had issued notices to the Speaker and secretary of the Assembly in the first week of March in the petition filed by BRS legislators Padi Kaushik Reddy, K.P. Vivekanand and others complaining against the Speaker’s delay in deciding the disqualification applications against BRS MLAs who had defected.
Charyulu submitted a 25-page counter, stating that the pending SLPs filed by the petitioners are to be dismissed and they had not reached the Supreme Court with clean hands. Mentioning several judgments of the Supreme Court and the High Court, he submitted that the ‘reasonable time’ did not imply three months.
Further, indirectly stating that the apex court did not have the powers to interfere in the Speaker’s jurisdiction, Charyulu stated in the affidavit that it was a settled law that Article 136 jurisdiction was to be exercised sparingly and in exceptional cases. The petitioners had not made out a case warranting exercise of Article 136 jurisdiction.
Article 136 gives the Supreme Court extraordinary jurisdiction to ensure that there is no miscarriage of justice and it allows the court to intervene in cases where justice and equity may require it.