The Telangana High Court on Tuesday issued notices to Telangana Assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivasa Reddy, Assembly Secretary, Central Election Commission Secretary and the 12 Congress MLAs who defected to TRS recently.

Congress Legislative Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and PCC President Uttam Kumar Reddy moved the High Court against the merger of the Congress Legislative Party into TRS Legislative Party, which stripped the grand old party of the Opposition status in the Assembly.

After the hearing out the Congress party counsel, the High Court bench issued notices to them and adjourned the matter to next month for further hearing.

Uttam Kumar Reddy had earlier said the party would approach the High Court if need be to knock on the doors of Lokpal to protest against the “undemocratic” manner in which TRS was behaving in the State.

In a jolt to the Congress party in the State, 12 of its 18 MLAs in the State met Assembly Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy recently and gave him a representation seeking to merge their group with the ruling TRS Legislative Party headed by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

With this merger, the TRS tally in the Assembly has gone up to 102 from 88 seats and the Congress is now down to six MLAs.

Uttam Kumar Reddy had pointed out that the Supreme Court had several times in the past ruled that the speakers have no power to merge a national party into a regional party.