Telangana High Court Disqualifies Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender

The Telangana High Court on Friday set aside an order of Assembly Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar that had dismissed petitions seeking the disqualification of Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender, and declared that he stands disqualified from the House with effect from April 23, 2024.

The ruling was delivered by a bench comprising Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice G.M. Mohiuddin, which had reserved its orders on August 21 in two writ petitions. One was filed by Huzurabad BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy and the other by Nirmal BJP MLA Alleti Maheshwar Reddy. Both sought to quash the Speaker's order of March 11.

The petitioners argued that Mr. Nagender attracted disqualification under paragraph 2 (1) (a) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, since he had been elected as an MLA on a BRS ticket in December 2023 but later contested the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket in May 2024 without resigning from the party that had sent him to the Assembly.

Mr. Nagender was among ten BRS MLAs who shifted allegiance to the Congress between March and August 2024. The others were Kadiyam Srihari (Station Ghanpur), Pocharam Srinivas Reddy (Banswada), Tellam Venkat Rao (Bhadrachalam), M. Sanjay Kumar (Jagitial), Arekapudi Gandhi (Serilingampally), T. Prakash Goud (Rajendranagar), B. Krishna Mohan Reddy (Gadwal), Kale Yadaiah (Chevella) and Gudem Mahipal Reddy (Patancheru).

The matter has moved through several forums since the BRS approached the High Court in April 2024, complaining that the Speaker's office was not acting on its disqualification petitions. A single judge directed the Speaker's office on September 9, 2024, to fix a schedule for hearing the pleas, but a division bench set that direction aside on November 27, 2024. The Supreme Court then set aside the division bench order on July 31, 2025, and directed the Speaker's office to decide the petitions within three months.

The Speaker's office eventually dismissed all the disqualification petitions concerning the ten MLAs. The BRS challenged those orders in writ petitions against nine of the ten legislators, but did not file a plea against Patancheru MLA Mahipal Reddy. The BJP's Maheshwar Reddy filed a separate petition against Mr. Nagender. While orders were reserved in his case on August 21, the bench continued to hear arguments in the pleas concerning the remaining eight MLAs.