T speaker exploring legal options on turncoat MLAs

Hyderabad: Assembly speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar is exploring legal options to go for an appeal on the recent Telangana high court order, directing the assembly secretary to place the MLAs' disqualification petitions before him.
The speaker is believed to have spoken to the advocate general and constitutional experts in Supreme Court on possible legal options available before him to contest the high court order.Sources in the assembly said Prasad Kumar is likely to take a decision in the first week of Oct after winding up the consultations with legal experts.
Sources in the govt said till Saturday night, the petitions seeking disqualification of three BRS MLAs — Danam Nagender, Kadiyam Srihari and Tellam Venkat Rao — after they joined Congress have not been placed before the speaker.
While the high court directed the assembly secretary to place the petitions before the speaker and fix the schedule within a month to hear them, govt sources said there is still a lot of time to meet the deadline fixed by the court. While BRS approached the high court on the three MLAs, some more BRS legislators switched loyalties to Congress in the last couple of months.
Govt sources said there are two or three issues involved in the case. "One, the court orders are directed only for the assembly secretary and not to the assembly speaker. But, there is a direction to the speaker to fix the schedule for hearing the disqualification petitions. The other issue is after hearing the three petitions, the speaker will have to hear some more petitions on the other BRS MLAs who joined Congress," a source said.
The high court, in its order on Sept 9, asked the assembly secretary to place the petitions before the speaker for fixing a schedule of hearing, including filing of pleadings, documents, personal hearing, etc., within four weeks from the day of the judgment. It also asked the secretary to communicate the schedule to the registrar (judicial). If nothing is heard within four weeks, the court said it will reopen the case suo motu and pass appropriate orders.