Congress Receives Jolt in Telangana HC, Danam Nagender Loses MLA post
HC found that the Speaker’s reasoning on jurisdiction violated Article 191(2) read with Paragraphs 2(1)(a) and 2(1)(b) of the Tenth Schedule. Danam ready to contest bypoll
HYDERABAD: In a significant anti-defection ruling, the Telangana High Court has disqualified Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender from the state Legislative Assembly, overturning Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar’s decision that had allowed him to retain his seat despite contesting the 2024 Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket after being elected as a BRS legislator.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G.M. Mohiuddin ruled Friday that Nagender stood disqualified with effect from April 23, 2024, under Paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution, which deals with lawmakers who voluntarily give up membership of the political party on whose ticket they were elected. The court consequently declared the Khairatabad Assembly seat vacant.
The High Court set aside the Speaker’s March 11, 2026 order dismissing petitions seeking Nagender’s disqualification. The court also rejected a request from Nagender’s counsel to temporarily keep the judgment in abeyance so that he could pursue an appeal.
The Registry was directed to communicate the ruling to the Telangana Assembly authorities and the Election Commission.
From BRS MLA to Congress Lok Sabha candidate
Nagender won the Khairatabad Assembly constituency in the November 2023 Telangana election as a Bharat Rashtra Samithi candidate. The results were declared on Dec. 3, 2023.
He subsequently aligned with the Congress and contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Secunderabad as the Congress candidate while continuing to hold the Assembly seat he had won on a BRS ticket.
That conduct became the central issue in the disqualification proceedings.
BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy and BJP Legislature Party leader Alleti Maheshwar Reddy pursued challenges over Nagender’s continued membership of the Assembly. Maheshwar Reddy had filed a disqualification petition before the Speaker on July 1, 2024, according to the procedural history subsequently recorded in Supreme Court proceedings.
The Speaker ultimately rejected the disqualification petitions, concluding that the evidence did not establish that Nagender had legally given up his BRS membership. That March 11 decision was then challenged before the High Court.
Court rejects narrow interpretation of defection law
A central question before the High Court was whether a legislator’s conduct outside the Assembly could establish that he had voluntarily given up membership of the political party that elected him.
The Speaker had taken a narrow view of such conduct. But the High Court concluded that the approach could not be sustained under the constitutional framework governing defection.
According to reporting on the detailed ruling, the bench found that the Speaker’s reasoning on jurisdiction violated Article 191(2) read with Paragraphs 2(1)(a) and 2(1)(b) of the Tenth Schedule. The court held that the Speaker’s decision was open to judicial review and was legally unsustainable.
The ruling is important because Paragraph 2(1)(a) does not require a legislator to submit a formal resignation from a political party before disqualification can arise. Conduct can be examined to determine whether the member has effectively given up party membership.
In Nagender’s case, the High Court focused on the undisputed fact that he had been elected to the Assembly on a BRS ticket and subsequently became the Congress candidate for the Secunderabad Lok Sabha constituency.
The court also noted that Nagender had campaigned against the BRS candidate in the parliamentary election. Given those admitted circumstances, the bench said the Speaker could not reasonably have reached the conclusion that Nagender had not defected from the BRS.
Formal resignation not the deciding factor
During the proceedings, arguments supporting the Speaker’s decision pointed to Nagender not having formally resigned from the BRS, his continued recognition in Assembly records as a BRS legislator and the absence of disciplinary action against him by the party.
The challengers argued that those circumstances could not erase a disqualification already incurred through conduct amounting to voluntarily giving up party membership. They maintained that contesting an election as another political party’s official candidate was powerful evidence of such conduct.
The High Court ultimately rejected the Speaker’s reasoning.
The court also found fault with the treatment of evidence relating to Nagender’s Congress candidature. Nagender had not disputed the essential facts that he contested the Secunderabad parliamentary election as a Congress candidate and campaigned against the BRS.
The judgment therefore reinforces the distinction between **formally resigning from a political party** and **voluntarily giving up membership through conduct** under the Tenth Schedule.
Part of a wider Telangana defection battle
Nagender’s case forms part of a much broader political and constitutional dispute involving BRS legislators accused of switching allegiance to the Congress after the 2023 Telangana Assembly election.
The legal battle had already reached the Supreme Court during an earlier phase when petitioners complained about delays in deciding disqualification petitions.
Supreme Court records show that the original proceedings included disqualification petitions concerning Nagender, Venkata Rao Tellam and Kadiyam Srihari. The litigation moved through a Telangana High Court single judge, a High Court division bench and eventually the Supreme Court over the question of how the Speaker should deal with the pending petitions.
Separate challenges concerning the Speaker’s decisions on other BRS legislators have also reached the Telangana High Court.
The Nagender judgment is therefore likely to be closely studied in those proceedings, although each legislator’s case must be determined on its own facts and legal record.
Nagender says he is ready to contest again
Despite the High Court ruling, Nagender indicated that he was prepared to return to the electorate if a fresh election is called.
Speaking to reporters after the judgment, he said he welcomed the decision and was ready to contest again. Asked whether he would approach the Supreme Court, Nagender said he had not yet considered that course of action.
That statement is significant because initial political discussion following the verdict included the possibility of further litigation. As of Friday night, however, Nagender himself had not announced a decision to challenge the judgment in the Supreme Court.
The High Court’s refusal to keep its judgment in abeyance means its disqualification order has not been suspended by the bench that issued it.
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