Andhra Pradesh state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, who has been going overboard with his comments against ministers and officials of the state government may have to face a privilege motion in the assembly and even imprisonment, if possible.
Quickly acting on the letters written by panchayat raj minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy and municipal administration minister Botsa Satyanarayana, state assembly speaker Tammineni Sitaram on Monday referred them to the assembly privileges committee.
Since the Jagan Mohan Reddy government has taken Nimmagadda’s issue as a matter of prestige, it is certain that the privileges committee would quickly look into the complaints and might issue a notice to him any time, sources said.
If the privileges committee takes it seriously, it might even send Nimmagadda to jail at least for a few days, as had happened in the case of Maharasthra SEC Nandalal in 2008.
Experts recall that the Maharashtra state legislative assembly sent Nandalal to two days' simple imprisonment for contempt of the House. He was not even given a chance to go home for a change of clothes or move the state high court.
An IAS officer of the 1969 batch, the 63-year-old UP-born Nandalal promulgated orders in March 2006 saying all elections to civic bodies and zilla parishads would be conducted by the SEC and not the state government as per Article 243K of the Constitution.
Accusing him of undermining the legislature, a Congress MLA Janardan Chandurkar moved a breach of privilege motion against the SEC.
The motion was referred to the privileges committee. The panel later submitted a report to the Speaker saying Nandalal did not appear before it for explanation.
The committee felt that this was a fit case of contempt and sentenced the bureaucrat to seven days' simple imprisonment. It was later reduced to two days on the intervention of the CM.
Nandalal then alleged that the breach of privilege was merely an excuse used by the CM to settle a personal score concerning the latter's Lok Sabha constituency, Latur.
In 2007, Nandlal had pulled up the CM for violating the model code of conduct by using the government helicopter for campaigning.
