Congress MLA S.A. Sampath Kumar created a flutter in Telangana Assembly on Tuesday serving `Dasti’ notices by hand on the order of Supreme Court to the Speaker S. Madhusudana Chary and four MLAs who defected from Congress to the TRS – D.S. Redya Naik, Kale Yadaiah, G. Vittal Reddy and Koram Kanakaiah.
Mr. Sampath Kumar served the notices in the wake of his special leave petition in Supreme Court against the defection of the MLAs.
When the SLP came up before it on August 17, the Apex court had ordered “issue notice, returnable in three weeks. Dasti, in addition, is permitted”.
The court posted the case for hearing on September 19. Mr. Sampath Kumar, who is the whip of Congress in Assembly, had moved the Supreme Court after the High Court had left his petition seeking disqualification of the four MLAs to the discretion of the Speaker.
Armed with `Dasti’ which means service of notice by petitioner on respondents in person and not by Registry through post, Mr. Sampath Kumar walked up to the Speaker in the podium when the Assembly was in session to handover the document. He also left the papers with the MLAs later. Addressing mediapersons later, Mr. Sampath Kumar accused the TRS government of promoting defections in the last two years of its rule.
He said he approached Supreme Court as a last resort as he failed to get justice from Speaker. He also said he will represent to the Apex court to include three other Congress MLAs who defected to TRS subsequent to filing of the case – P. Ajay Kumar, C. Rammohan Reddy and N. Krishna Rao – as respondents.
The Congress deputy leader in Assembly T. Jeevan Reddy blamed the TRS government for promoting defections.
