Two Telangana officials taken in court custody for contempt

The Telangana High Court on Friday directed its judicial registrar to take into custody state Legislative Assembly Secretary V. Narasimhacharyulu and Law Department Secretary Niranjan Rao in a contempt of court case.

The two senior officials were later set free after they furnished Rs 10,000 sureties each.

Justice V. Siva Sankara Rao ordered the custody of the officials in a contempt case filed by two former Congress MLAs for not implementing the court orders for restoration of their Assembly membership last year.

Congress MLAs Komatireddi Venkat Reddy and S.A. Sampath Kumar were disqualified by then Speaker S. Madhusudhanachary in March 2018 for unruly behaviour during the Governor's address to the joint session of the state legislature.

They were charged with throwing microphone, which allegedly injured Legislative Council Chairman Swamy Goud. The MLAs denied the allegations.

The Legislature Secretary subsequently notified the vacancies for the constituencies the two Congress MLAs were representing.

On a petition challenging their disqualification, the Congress legislators moved the High Court which on April 17 restored their Assembly membership and set aside the government notification to declare vacancies for Nalgonda and Alampur (SC) constituencies.

As their membership was not restored, the MLAs filed contempt petition against then Speaker and officials. The same was pending when the Telangana Assembly was dissolved in September last year.

In the Assembly elections held on December 7, both Venkat Reddy and Sampath and also the Speaker were defeated.

The High Court had taken serious note of the officials made respondent in the case not appearing before it despite the notices.

Last week, the High Court had issued bailable warrants against the Assembly Secretary and Law Secretary with a directive to Hyderabad police to produce them in the court. However, both the officials voluntarily appeared before the court.

The court on Friday issued notices to Madhusudhanachary, the Director General of Police and the Superintendents of Police of Nalgonda and Gadwal districts to appear before the court on March 8.

The judge also took exception to certain remarks made by Additional Advocate General J. Ramachandra Rao during the hearing last week.

--IANS

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