The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the disqualification of Danam Nagender as a member of the Telangana Legislative Assembly, ruling that his decision to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket while being a Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) MLA attracted the anti-defection provisions of the Constitution. The court dismissed Nagender’s challenge to the Telangana high court order that had disqualified him with effect from April 23, 2024.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana said there was no ground to interfere with the high court judgment.
During the hearing, the bench questioned Nagender’s argument that his subsequent return to the BRS could save his assembly membership. “How will your ghar wapasi (home coming) to your party save you? When an act of defection is done, you lose the membership of the House. You may be brought back to the party, but you have to leave the House,” the bench observed. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Nagender, argued that the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution permits a member to voluntarily give up membership and that Nagender had since joined back the BRS . The BRS opposed Nagender’s plea, disputing his claim that the party had condoned his action. It was also pointed out that it was a BRS MLA who had sought his disqualification. You can even contest and even become CM, who knows. But the Speaker may not be kind to you. BRS MLA Padi Kaushik Reddy and BJP legislature party leader Alleti Maheshwar Reddy had approached the Telangana assembly Speaker seeking Nagender’s disqualification, arguing that his decision to contest the Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket amounted to voluntarily giving up membership of the BRS. The BRS and BJP subsequently approached the Telangana High Court challenging the Speaker’s decision.
The bench, however, pointed out that the provision cited by Rohatgi applied to a member voting against the party whip and not to voluntarily giving up party membership under Paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule. Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar dismissed the disqualification petitions on March 11, 2026.
The bench told Rohatgi: “Your party may be kind to you and even send you to Rajya Sabha . BRS working president KT Rama Rao described the verdict as a “supreme slap” to Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Revanth Reddy. He alleged that the two leaders had sought to “steal a mandate through defections” and believed defected legislators could be protected through the Speaker.
