“You had a fixed deposit as MLA, you tried for share market as MP, and now you lost the Fixed Deposit,” Justice Joymalya Bagchi remarked, as the Supreme Court dismissed Danam Nagender’s plea and upheld his disqualification as a Telangana MLA under the anti-defection law for contesting the Lok Sabha polls on a rival party’s ticket.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition filed by former Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender challenging the Telangana High Court’s judgment that disqualified him from the Telangana Legislative Assembly under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution for defecting from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) to the Indian National Congress [Danam Nagender v. Alleti Maheshwar Reddy].
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana observed that the High Court’s judgment was based on a correct interpretation of the law and that no interference was called for.
The background
Nagender had won the Khairatabad Assembly constituency in the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections on a BRS ticket. He subsequently joined the Congress and contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from the Secunderabad constituency as a Congress candidate, while continuing to be a sitting MLA elected on a BRS ticket. On that basis, disqualification petitions were filed against him under the anti-defection law.
The Telangana Legislative Assembly Speaker, Gaddam Prasad Kumar, had rejected the petitions seeking Nagender’s disqualification. A Division Bench of the Telangana High Court, comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G.M. Mohiuddin, set aside the Speaker’s decision and held that Nagender had incurred disqualification, with effect from April 23, 2024, the date he contested the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat as a Congress candidate while being a BRS MLA. The High Court held that the Khairatabad Assembly seat had consequently fallen vacant, paving the way for a fresh election, and declined to keep the disqualification in abeyance to enable an appeal. Nagender then approached the Supreme Court.
The legal argument: can defection be ‘condoned’?
Appearing for Nagender, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi advanced a specific argument on the structure of the Tenth Schedule. He submitted that there is a provision under which a political party can condone the act of a member, referring to Paragraph 2(1)(b) of the Tenth Schedule, and contended that the act of giving up party membership could similarly be condoned.
The Bench, however, drew a crucial distinction between the two limbs of the disqualification provision. It pointed out that the condonation contemplated applies only to Paragraph 2(1)(b), which deals with a member voting or abstaining contrary to the party whip, where the party may condone the conduct within fifteen days. That mechanism, the Court noted, does not extend to Paragraph 2(1)(a), which deals with a member having “voluntarily given up” his membership of the party on whose ticket he was elected. In other words, while defiance of a whip can be forgiven by the party, voluntarily abandoning one’s party, the ground on which Nagender was disqualified, does not carry the same statutory escape route.
Counsel appearing for the BRS, in any event, denied that the party had condoned Nagender’s act, and underscored that it was a BRS member who had filed the disqualification petition against him. The Bench then held that there was no ground for interfering with the High Court’s decision, and dismissed the plea.
The Court’s lighter remarks
The hearing was marked by a series of wry observations from Justice Bagchi on the petitioner’s political journey from an Assembly seat to a Lok Sabha contest. As the matter was taken up, referring to Nagender having been a BRS MLA in 2023 who then contested as a Congress candidate for the Lok Sabha in 2024, the judge remarked in a lighter vein:
“You had a fixed deposit as MLA, you tried for share market as MP, and now you lost the Fixed Deposit.”
When Rohatgi raised the condonation argument, Justice Bagchi responded, again jovially, “Ghar Wapasi?” And as the exchange continued, the judge asked, with evident humour, “Your case is ‘aaya Ram, gaya Ram, phir aaya Ram’?”, invoking the phrase long associated in Indian politics with repeated floor-crossing.
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Why it matters
The decision is a clear reaffirmation of the anti-defection law’s core discipline, and of an important structural distinction within the Tenth Schedule that is often blurred. The Schedule, introduced by the 52nd Constitutional Amendment in 1985, disqualifies a legislator on two principal grounds: voluntarily giving up membership of the party on whose ticket he was elected [Para 2(1)(a)], and voting or abstaining against the party’s direction without permission or condonation [Para 2(1)(b)]. The Court’s clarification that the fifteen-day condonation window attaches only to the latter, and not to voluntary abandonment of the party, is a significant reminder that a legislator who switches sides cannot ordinarily escape disqualification by later claiming the party’s forgiveness.
The case also illustrates the settled principle that “voluntarily giving up membership” is not confined to a formal resignation but can be inferred from conduct, here, contesting an election on a rival party’s ticket while holding a seat won on the original party’s symbol, which is among the clearest possible acts of defection. By affirming the High Court, the Supreme Court has underscored that such conduct attracts disqualification, and that a Speaker’s failure to act on it is amenable to judicial correction. With the plea dismissed and the disqualification standing from April 2024, the Khairatabad seat remains vacant for a fresh election.
Case Title: Danam Nagender v. Alleti Maheshwar Reddy [SLP(C) Nos. 33735-33736 of 2026]
Bench: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana
Date of Order: September 24, 2026