The Supreme Court has declined to interfere with the Telangana High Court judgment disqualifying former Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender under the anti-defection law, leaving the High Court’s decision and the resulting vacancy in place.
Nagender won the Khairatabad Assembly constituency in the 2023 Telangana election as a Bharat Rashtra Samithi candidate. He later joined the Congress and contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Secunderabad as a Congress candidate while continuing to hold his Assembly seat. The Telangana High Court concluded that those actions attracted disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
A three-judge Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, dismissed Nagender’s challenge and said there was no ground to interfere with the High Court’s interpretation. The High Court had treated his disqualification as effective from April 23, 2024, the date on which he contested the parliamentary election as a Congress candidate.
The case carries significance beyond one constituency because it addresses a recurring problem in Indian politics: elected legislators changing political alignment after winning on another party’s ticket. The Tenth Schedule was designed to curb certain forms of defection, but disputes often arise over when a member’s conduct amounts to voluntarily giving up party membership and how quickly presiding officers must decide disqualification petitions.
In Nagender’s case, the High Court had set aside the Assembly Speaker’s rejection of petitions seeking his disqualification. The Supreme Court’s refusal to disturb that judgment gives the ruling immediate institutional effect.
For Khairatabad voters, the principal consequence is that the Assembly seat is treated as vacant, subject to the formal election process required to fill it. The timing of any by-election will be determined through the applicable election machinery rather than by the political parties.
The ruling also has wider implications for parties managing defections and legislators considering changes of affiliation. It signals that courts can closely scrutinise conduct such as contesting an election on another party’s ticket while retaining a seat won under the original party banner.
Political reactions from the Congress and BRS may frame the decision differently, but the legally operative point is straightforward: the Supreme Court did not overturn the High Court’s disqualification order.
