The Supreme Court has come down heavily on Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy for "making a mockery" of the anti-defection law over his assurance in the Assembly that if Opposition MLAs defect to the ruling Congress, they need not fear about by-elections.

"If this is said on the floor of the House, your honourable chief minister is making a mockery of the 10th Schedule," Justice B.R. Gavai, heading a bench, told senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for the Speaker. The bench, which included Justice Augustine George Masih, said: "You better be warned that no repeat action. Though we are slow in issuing contempt notices, we are also not powerless."

Rohatgi said he was not appearing for the chief minister but the Speaker. But Justice Gavai pointed out that the senior counsel and former attorney-general had represented the chief minister in August last year wherein he had tendered an apology for certain scandalous remarks against the Supreme Court for granting bail to BRS MLA K. Kavita in a money-laundering case.

The bench on Wednesday gave vent to its ire after senior advocate Aryama Sundaram, appearing for BRS MLA P. Kaushik Reddy, read out the reported statement made by the chief minister in the Assembly on March 26.

Sundaram read: "Hon’ble Speaker sir, through you I want to assure the members that they need not worry about by-elections. No by-elections will happen. Even if they (the BRS) desire to have one for their seats, there will be none. Even if their members switch sides there will not be a by-election."

The bench brushed aside Rohatgi’s argument that courts cannot go into issues relating to powers vested in the Speaker as they are beyond the scope of judicial review. "So, the courts should not interfere and this court should also tie its hands away and look at the dance of democracy? If the Speaker does not act, courts in the country have power and have to act as guardians of democracy," Justice Gavai told Rohatgi.