High Court dismisses TRS MLAs’ plea on expulsion of Congress MLAs

Hyderabad: Holding that it is only the state legislature which can prefer an appeal against the order of the single judge and not individual MLAs, the High Court at Hyderabad has dismissed the Writ Appeal filed by the 12 TRS MLAs challenging the order of the single judge who had set aside the resolution of the Telangana Legislative Assembly on March 13 expelling two Congress MLAs Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and S A Sampath Kumar from the membership of the Assembly and directed restoration of their membership. 

In a 55-page judgment authored by the Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan, the division bench comprising Justice Ranganathan and Justice K Vijayalakshmi rejected the argument advanced by the senior Supreme Court counsel C S Vaidyanathan on behalf of the 12 TRS MLAs that besides the Legislative Assembly, each of its members have the power and privilege to expel another member.

“It is the Legislative Assembly, as a Constitutional entity, which expels its members for contempt, and is a power collectively exercised by all the members of the House, and not individually. 

The right to expel a member from the House is conferred on the Legislative Assembly as a body created under the Constitution, and no member can claim any individual right, power or privilege to have another member expelled from the House,” it was made clear by the bench. 

The court further stated that the possibility of the appellants (12 TRS MLAs) being remotely or indirectly affected by the order under appeal, as they had voted in favour of the resolution passed by the House, would not justify an appeal being entertained at their behest.

Noting that the power and privilege to expel a member from the House is conferred only on the Legislative Assembly under Article 194(3) of the Constitution of India which is expressed by the collective will of the members of the Legislature passing a resolution in this regard, the Court observed that this power of expulsion is regarded as an example of the right of the Legislative Assembly to regulate its own constitution and protect the integrity of its functioning. 

In the present case, as the decision to expel a member has been taken by the Legislative Assembly, it is for the Legislative Assembly, if it so chooses, to prefer an appeal against the order of the single judge setting aside its decision. The appellants cannot claim to have the constitutional right under Article 194(3) to have another member of the Legislative Assembly expelled, it was made clear.

The judgment clarifies that it is not going into the merits or otherwise of the order passed by single judge because it was only deciding the enititlement of the appellants to prefer an appeal against the order passed by the single judge. It has therefore confined its examination of submissions made by senior Supreme Court counsels on both sides to only about this aspect. 

With the court dismissing this appeal by the TRS legislators, it remains to be seen whether the State Legislative Assembly, represented either by its Speaker or Secretary, comes forward to prefer an appeal against the order of the single judge. The pressure of the Congress party on the Speaker to restore the membership of its two members is bound to grow in light of this judgment.