The Supreme Court of India has given a final three-week deadline to the Telangana Assembly Speaker to decide pending disqualification pleas against BRS MLAs who defected to Congress. Warning of strict action, the Court said failure to act within the timeline will invite contempt proceedings.
The Supreme Court of India on Friday gave a final chance to the Speaker of the Telangana Legislative Assembly to decide the remaining disqualification petitions against MLAs who had switched sides from the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) to the Congress after winning the elections on BRS tickets.
A Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and A G Masih directed the Speaker to take a decision within three weeks. The court clearly warned that if the Speaker fails to do so, contempt proceedings will be initiated. While passing the order, the Bench said,
“We expect the Speaker to positively take a decision, failing which we shall proceed to issue contempt”.
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The Supreme Court has been hearing this matter since December 2024. During this period, the court has repeatedly asked the Speaker to decide on the 10 disqualification petitions pending against the defecting MLAs.
Earlier, on July 31, 2025, the court had given the Speaker three months’ time to decide the petitions. However, when no decision was taken within the deadline, contempt petitions were filed before the court. Later, in December 2025, the Speaker rejected seven out of the 10 disqualification petitions.
The case came up again before the Supreme Court on January 16, when the Telangana government requested more time. The court then granted an additional two weeks.
During Friday’s hearing, Senior Advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for the State, informed the court that a decision had been taken in one more petition. He further requested three additional weeks to decide the remaining cases, citing the conduct of municipal elections as the reason for the delay.
This request was strongly opposed by the counsel appearing for the petitioners. Disagreeing with the State’s stand, the counsel told the court,
“The facts are being twisted in the wrong way… There is nothing to do with municipal elections.”
The dispute has a long legal history. Initially, the Bharat Rashtra Samiti had approached the Telangana High Court seeking directions to the Speaker to decide on the disqualification petitions against the 10 MLAs.
A single judge of the High Court had directed the Speaker to fix a schedule and hear the petitions within four weeks. However, the Speaker challenged this order before a division bench of the High Court.
On November 22, 2024, the division bench set aside the single judge’s order and asked the Speaker to decide the disqualification pleas within a reasonable time. Not satisfied with this, the BRS moved the Supreme Court.
On July 31, 2025, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court division bench’s order and directed the Speaker to decide the petitions expeditiously and in any case within three months.
Despite repeated directions and deadlines fixed by the apex court, the matter remains partly undecided. With Friday’s order, the Supreme Court has now made it clear that no further delay will be tolerated and that failure to comply within three weeks could invite serious consequences for the Speaker.
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