Hyderabad: Challenging the bulletin issued by TS Legislative Secretary V. Narasimhacharyulu on June 6 announcing the merger of the Congress Legislature Party with the TRSLP, CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy approached the High Court.
The Congress leaders filed a petition urging the court to suspend bulletin as illegal and against the rules of Tenth Schedule and Article 102 and 191.
They sought a direction to Assembly Speaker P. Srinivas Reddy to decide the disqualification petitions pending against the 12 Congress MLAs who had individually defected to the TRS as expeditiously as possible, preferably within 90 days as per the directions of the Supreme Court.
They told the court that the Speaker had decided to merge the Congress group despite their petitions against the legislators seeking their disqualification for indulging in anti-party activities. They said the 12 MLAs had not joined the TRS the same day or at the same time.
Mr Bhatti and Mr Vikramarka alleged that TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao with malafide intention had lured the legislators to join the ruling party. They also told the court about the merger of the Congress in the Legislative Council with its TRS counterpart, and their petition before the court challenging that merger, which had been posted to June 11.
They said that the Speaker was not competent to decide on the merger of a political party independently without recourse to Paragraph No. 2 and Paragraph No. 6 (1) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
Counsel for the petitioner made a mention before the division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice Shameem Akther. The bench agreed to hear the petition on Tuesday along with the one on the merger of the Congress in the Council.
