Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], November 19 : Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao on Wednesday took a jibe at Telangana assembly speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar over the impending decision on the disqualification of 10 rebel MLAs for defecting to Congress in 2023.
"The speaker has to take the call immediately or else, as the Supreme Court said, the speaker has to decide where he is going to spend the New Year's Eve," KTR told ANI while speaking on the Supreme Court's verdict on the BRS MLAs' defection case, which has been pending for over a year and a half.
He said that such a "censure" has never been passed on anybody in the country. KTR hoped that the Telangana speaker would decide on the disqualification immediately and deliver justice.
"The Chief Justice of India has delivered a very very strong rebuke to the speaker of Telangana. We hope that the speaker will finally decide on the disqualification matter, which has been pending for more than one and a half years. The disqualification law is extremely clear. I don't think this sort of censure has ever been passed on anybody in the country so far. We are hopeful that the speaker will decide on disqualification immediately and do justice," KTR said.
The 10 rebel BRS MLAs defected to Congress in 2023 after it won the legislative assembly elections, allowing it to form the ruling government in Telangana.
Earlier, the Supreme Court issued a stern warning to the Telangana assembly speaker over his failure to timely decide the disqualification pleas filed against 10 BRS MLAs who defected to the ruling party (Congress) in the state.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) BR Gavai directed the speaker to decide the disqualification petitions within one week and warned of contempt of court proceedings for non-compliance.
"It is for the Speaker to decide, we have already held that he doesn't enjoy constitutional immunity", observed the top court.
The Supreme Court's decision came on a contempt plea filed by BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy against the Telangana Speaker for allegedly not complying with its direction to decide disqualification pleas against the 10 defecting BRS (to Congress) MLAs within three months.
The Court also sought the speaker's response to Reddy's plea within two weeks.
The Court stated that the speaker's conduct is in gross contempt of the court. It's for the speaker to decide whether he wants to decide on the matter or face contempt of court, CJI Gavai added.
The apex court on July 31 had directed the Telangana Speaker to decide the disqualification petitions as expeditiously as possible, and in any case, within a three-month timeframe.
The bench had also directed the speaker of the Telangana assembly not to allow any MLA to protract the process of disqualification.
In case any MLA attempts to protract the proceedings, the speaker is directed to draw an adverse inference against them, the bench had noted in July.