Chief Justice of Telangana High Court Ujjal Bhuyan on Monday adjourned to October 20 the petition challenging the election of TRS candidate B.B. Patil from Zaheerabad Lok Sabha seat. The petition was filed by Congress nominee K. Madan Mohan Rao, who lost to Mr. Patil in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Hearing of the election petition was taken up by the Chief Justice after the Supreme Court remanded back the matter to Telangana High Court having heard the plea filed by Mr. Rao challenging the single judge order over his election petition. Initially, the Congress nominee filed the Election Petition questioning the election of Mr. Patil.
He stated that a criminal case was pending in Jharkhand against Mr. Patil but the latter in his election affidavit did not disclose it to the Election Commission while filing nomination papers. A single judge of the HC, who heard the election petition, rejected it.
Mr. Rao moved the Supreme Court stating that the single judge did not specify any reason for rejection of his election petition. He also claimed that even the single judge order was not uploaded on the HC website. The SC on this June 15 set aside the single judge order and remanded back the matter to the HC, instructing both the parties to appear before the Chief Justice of the HC.
On Monday, counsels of both Mr. Patil and Mr. Rao appeared before the CJ bench. Mr. Rao’s counsel stated that valuable time was lost as listing of the matter before the court got delayed.
Making it clear to both the parties that they should seek any further adjournments on hearing of the case, the CJ said it would be announced whether to assign the case to a single judge or the bench of the CJ.
Meanwhile, a division bench of Justices K. Lakshman and Chillakur Sumalatha on Monday directed Advocate General B.S. Prasad to be present before it on Wednesday to assist the court in clarifying the government stand over reservation quota for in-service doctors in Medical PG seats.
