Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Monday asked TS Legislative Council Chairman A. Swamy Goud, the Election Commission of India and the Centre to file their affidavits in three weeks on the decision to disqualify Mr R. Bhupathi Reddy from the Upper House.
The order was issued by a division bench of Chief Justice T.B.N. Radhakrishnan and Justice A. Rajasekher Reddy that was dealing the plea of Mr Bhupathi Reddy seeking to set aside Mr Goud’s disqualification order. Mr Reddy alleged that Mr Goud was behaving in a partisan manner and issuing marching orders on disqualification petitions in a ‘pick and choose’ manner “upon the instructions of someone.” Mr Goud had disqualified Mr Bhupathi Reddy on grounds of defection.
The former MLC questioned the validity of Para 8 of the X Schedule of the Constitution and Rule 7(4) of the Members of Telangana Legislative Council (disqualification on grounds of defection) Rules. He asked court to suspend the disqualification order passed by Mr Goud on January 16 of this year and requested the court to restrain the Election Commission from notifying the vacancy.
