Hyderabad: The BJP members of Telangana Legislative Assembly, who were suspended from Assembly last week, called on Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy on Tuesday March 15, a day after the High Court asked them to meet him.
As per the suggestion of the court, Raghunandan Rao, Eatala Rajender and T. Raja Singh met the Speaker at his chamber in the Assembly building and informed him about the observations made by the court while hearing their petition challenging the suspension.
The Speaker reportedly assured the legislators that he will take an appropriate decision. The BJP MLAs later held a meeting at the party office to decide their future course of action.
Tuesday is the last day of the Budget Session of the Assembly. The session had commenced on March 7 and on the very first day all three MLAs of BJP were suspended for disrupting the proceedings.
Protesting over the government’s move to commence the Budget Session without the Governor’s address, the BJP legislators tried to disrupt the proceedings.
On a resolution moved by the government, the Speaker announced their suspension for the entire session.
The MLAs had approached the high court challenging their suspension. They argued that their suspension was against the rules of the Legislative Assembly and the Constitution of India.
After a single judge refused to stay the suspension, the legislators filed an appeal before a division bench.
A bench of Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice A. Venkateswar Reddy left the decision to the Speaker. The court hoped that the Speaker would take an appropriate decision to uphold democratic principles in line with the impartial role of his office in the House.
The court had directed the Legislature Secretary to ensure that the trio gets to meet the speaker.
The bench had expressed its displeasure over the HC registry being prevented from handing over notice to the Assembly. On the direction of the court, the judicial registrar personally met Legislature Secretary Narasimha Charyulu and served the notice.
