Telangana Congress MLA whips up storm, serves SC notice to speaker and party defectors

In a move that triggered off a political storm, Telangana Congress MLA SA Sampath Kumar on Tuesday handed over ‘dasti notices’ of the Supreme Court to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and four other former Congress MLAs, who defected to the ruling TRS.

A dasti notice involves the petitioner personally submitting the notice to the respondents instead of sending it via post.

According to a report in The New Indian Express, Sampath Kumar gave the dasti notice to the Speaker when he was on the chair, while the four other MLAs were served notices in the Assembly premises and the photos of serving the notices were taken by the MLA as an evidence.

The report adds:

Congress Legislature Party (CLP) chief whip S A Sampath Kumar is the petitioner in the case which dealt with defections of Opposition party leaders into the ruling TRS. Following a Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed in Supreme Court, the SC on August 17 issued notices to four MLAs —Kale Yadaiah (Chevella constituency), DS Redya Naik (Dornakal), G Vittal Reddy (Mudhole) and Koram Kanakaiah (Yellandu)—and Assembly Speaker. 

A report in The Hindu states that Kumar accused the TRS government of promoting defections in the last two years of its rule. He added that he approached the Supreme Court as he failed to get justice from the Speaker.

The respondents have 30 days to file their affidavit and the apex court will take up the case from September 19.