Khairatabad elections not announced until poll petition is cleared: EC tells HC

The Election Commission of India (ECI) will not treat the Khairatabad constituency as a casual vacancy, the Election Commission of India informed the Supreme Court on Thursday.

Presenting his submissions in the writ petition, ECI Standing Counsel Avinash Desai also said that the Commission will not inform the constituency until the election petition is finally decided. The standing counsel was explaining the ECI’s stand in a writ petition filed by former corporator P. Vijaya Reddy seeking a direction to the ECI not to inform about the election of the Khairatabad assembly seat.

The former corporator lost the 2023 Khairatabad Assembly election as the Congress candidate to BRS’s Danam Nagender. She filed an election petition, which is pending judgment in the HC, challenging Nagender’s election on various grounds. She wanted the HC to declare her the winner. Nagender eventually joined the Congress and contested the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat and lost the election.

The HC recently disqualified Nagender as an MLA and declared the assembly seat vacant while delivering its verdict in a plea filed by BRS. The State Assembly Secretariat issued a notification declaring the Assembly venue vacant following the HC judgment.

Ms Vijaya Reddy, who is currently in the Congress, moved the HC by filing a writ petition claiming that the ECI should not notify the Khairatabad Assembly elections until her pending election petition is completed. The EP filed by her was heard by Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy and is awaiting judgment. Senior counsel Vedula Venkataramana, appearing for her, said the issue of declaring the council seat as a casual vacancy did not arise when the election petition related to that constituency was pending.

He cited a Supreme Court verdict to support his contention. He also cited Sections 84 and 98 (c) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and said that the ECI has no power to conduct by-elections to a constituency until the EP associated with it is completed.

A bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice Vakiti Ramakrishna Reddy, hearing arguments from the petitioner’s and ECI’s lawyers, adjourned the plea till Tuesday and directed the ECI to file an affidavit explaining its stand on the matter.

Published – 01 Oct 2026 21:41 IST