Hyderabad: The Telangana high court on Friday disqualified Danam Nagender as an MLA of the state assembly, setting the stage for a high-voltage by-election in the coming months. Nagender had won the Khairatabad seat in the heart of Hyderabad on a BRS ticket in the 2023 assembly elections and later contested the Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket. He was one of 10 MLAs against whom BRS had approached the court for shifting loyalties after winning their seats.“Having contested as a Congress candidate for Secunderabad constituency in the elections to Lok Sabha in 2024 despite being a member of BRS party, respondent 2 (Nagender) stands disqualified from April 23, 2024, as a member of Telangana Legislative Assembly. As a result thereof, the said seat (Khairatabad) is rendered vacant,” declared a bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice GM Mohiuddin in their order. April 23 is when Nagender filed his nomination as a Congress candidate.The bench also refused a request by Nagender’s counsel to keep the disqualification order in abeyance allowing him to go for an appeal and directed that a copy of the order be communicated to the assembly secretary, Speaker and to Election Commission.Petitions challenging the speaker’s decision dismissing disqualification petitions against nine other MLAs are pending before the court and will be heard later .The bench passed the order while allowing petitions filed by MLAs Alleti Maheshwar Reddy of BJP and Padi Kaushik Reddy of BRS challenging assembly speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar’s decision dismissing disqualification petitions against Nagender. The bench held the speaker’s findings “unsustainable on grounds of violation of constitutional mandates and perversity.”Exercising judicial review under Article 226, the judges ruled that the speaker committed a “serious jurisdictional error” by wrongly concluding that all of Nagender’s actions that were seen as defection by the BRS had been done outside the house which fell beyond the domain of his powers.The court further noted that Nagender’s actions — meeting chief minister A Revanth Reddy, wearing a Congress kanduva, campaigning against BRS, and media statements—cumulatively “amounted to voluntarily giving up BRS membership.” The bench emphasised that “contesting against one’s original party constitutes defection without requiring further proof since the facts remained undeniable.”Emphasising the role of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, the bench noted, “Its main objective is to curb the evil of political defections motivated by the lure of office or other similar considerations which endanger the foundations of our democracy.”In his defence, Nagender had informed the court that he had neither resigned from BRS nor formally joined the Congress. He had said that he never publicly announced he was joining Congress and continues to be a member of BRS, adding that there was no rule preventing a sitting MLA from contesting an MP election on the ticket of another political party.
