HC Censures Telangana Government Over Komatireddy

The Hyderabad High Court today censured the Telangana government for failing to implement its verdict ordering the reinstatement of Congress MLAs Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and S A Sampath Kumar, who had been expelled from the Assembly.

Dealing with a contempt of court petition filed by Reddy and Kumar, the High Court took a serious note of the defiance of the state government, and directed it to clarify its stance on the issue within a week, failing which the Legislature Secretary would need to appear before it personally to give an explanation.

The court also pulled up Additional Advocate General Ramachandra Rao asking him whether he was a government advocate or a TRS party advocate.

The court then adjourned the case to August 3.

For the uninitiated, Telangana Assembly Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary had expelled Venkat Reddy and Sampath Kumar for throwing headphones at Legislative Council chairman Swamy Goud during the Governor's speech on the opening day of the budget session. The MLAs approached the High Court challenging the Speaker's ruling, and a single judge bench of the court gave a verdict restoring the membership of the two MLAs. 12 TRS MLAs then challenged the verdict, and a larger bench that heard the challenge upheld it. However the Speaker still didn't restore the membership of the two MLAs, leading to the Congress MLAs approaching the High Court with a contempt of court petition.