Supreme Court sets Nov 8 deadline for Speaker on defections

​New Delhi: In a major move reflecting its resolve to curb violations of anti-defection laws, the Supreme Court on Wednesday set a deadline to Telangana State Legislative Assembly Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary to spell out by November 8 the time required to take a decision regarding disqualification of turncoat MLAs.

A two-judge bench comprising Justice Kurien Joseph and Justice Fali S Nariman took serious view of lack of response from Telangana State Assembly Speaker to its notices issued on August 18 to give response to the charges made in the petition filed by Congress MLA and Whip Sampath Kumar.

It may be recalled that a petition was filed in Supreme Court alleging that the conduct of the Speaker and the defected MLAs was contrary to the spirit of the Constitution, anti-defection laws and various judgments in this regard.

Petitioners' counsel Jandhyala Ravi Shankar had brought to the notice of the Court that the Telangana State government was encouraging defections on a massive scale as was reflected in the fact that the strength of TRS had increased from 63 MLAs in 2014 to 89 in 2016.

This was achieved through massive defections engineered by the ruling party, he alleged. Despite many pleas, the Speaker was sitting over the petitions seeking disqualification of the defected MLAs.

With the latest directive from the Supreme Court, analysts believe the Speaker has little room to manoeuvre and he will have to take a call on the defected MLAs status one way or the other.

With the Apex court directly dealing with the issue, the events in Telangana state will impact on Andhra Pradesh politics too as similar defections have taken place there with several YSRCP MLAs joining the ruling TDP. Andhra Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao also has not acted on the petitions filed against defected MLAs so far.