Hyderabad: A division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar of the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday admitted two appeals by Congress and Telugu Desam leaders challenging dismissal of their petitions seeking disqualification of three TD MLAs and five MLCs of the Congress on the ground of defection, by a single judge.

The bench issued notices to the Speaker of Telangana Assembly and chairman of Telangana Legislative Council directing them to respond to the pleas and state their stand on disqualification pleas pending before them.

The bench was dealing with the appeals by Errabelli Dayakar Rao, TD floor leader and Congress whip in the Legislative Council M.S. Prabhakar Rao.

Mr Dayakar Rao, in his earlier writ petition, urged the court for a directive to the Speaker of Telangana and chairman of Legislative Council to expedite hearing on the disqualification of three TD MLAs T. Srinivas Yadav, T. Krishna Reddy and Challa Dharma Reddy.

M.S. Prabhakar Rao, in his writ, urged the court to declare action of the chairman of the TS Legislative Council in not fixing a date for hearing of his application for the disqualification of MLCs K.R. Amos, V. Bhoopal Reddy, N. Rajalingam, T. Bhanu Prasad Rao and S. Jagadiswar Reddy, as illegal.

Both the petitioners said that the action of respondent MLAs and MLCs attract anti-defection law as they joined the TRS without resigning from their parent parties. Both the petitions were dismissed by a single judge holding that the petitions are not maintainable at pre-decisional stage.