PANAJI: The high court of Bombay at Goa on Thursday dismissed a plea seeking disqualification of ten Congress MLAs and two Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) MLAs who switched over to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claiming it was a merger of 2/3rds of the MLAs and not defection.
The verdict comes 10 days after the state went to the polls.
The petitions filed by state congress president Girish Chodankar and MGP’s Ramkrishna Sudin Dhavalikar challenged the orders passed by Speaker Rajesh Patnekar which held that the rebel MLAs did not invite disqualification under the anti-defection law.
On July 10, 2019, 10 Congress MLAs claiming to be two-thirds of the legislative party of the Congress in the assembly “merged” with the BJP and were allotted seats along with members of the BJP in the House.
The final hearing began less than two weeks before the assembly elections and arguments continued for several days via virtual mode.
Chodankar challenged the order passed by Patnekar by dismissing his petition seeking disqualification of the ten Congress MLAs who defected.
In November, the high court issued a notice to the ten Congress rebel MLAs as well as Patnekar calling for replies to reach it by December 6 and written statements by December 9.
Chodankar’s case is that the speaker, who upheld the “merger” of the ten Congress MLAs into BJP, failed to take documentary evidence while deciding the disqualification petition.
Congress party alleged bias and malice by the speaker in deciding the matter.
“The speaker deliberately delayed the proceedings pending before him since August 2019 and finally passed the order in the matter, after an inordinate delay of 20 months of the filing of the disqualification petition, that too only after the Supreme Court intervened by passing orders,” Congress stated.
During an earlier hearing in June last year, senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for Chodankar, had argued that there is urgency in the matter considering the term of the assembly was ending by March 2022, with only a few months left.
The verdict comes 10 days after the state went to the polls.
The petitions filed by state congress president Girish Chodankar and MGP’s Ramkrishna Sudin Dhavalikar challenged the orders passed by Speaker Rajesh Patnekar which held that the rebel MLAs did not invite disqualification under the anti-defection law.
On July 10, 2019, 10 Congress MLAs claiming to be two-thirds of the legislative party of the Congress in the assembly “merged” with the BJP and were allotted seats along with members of the BJP in the House.
The final hearing began less than two weeks before the assembly elections and arguments continued for several days via virtual mode.
Chodankar challenged the order passed by Patnekar by dismissing his petition seeking disqualification of the ten Congress MLAs who defected.
In November, the high court issued a notice to the ten Congress rebel MLAs as well as Patnekar calling for replies to reach it by December 6 and written statements by December 9.
Chodankar’s case is that the speaker, who upheld the “merger” of the ten Congress MLAs into BJP, failed to take documentary evidence while deciding the disqualification petition.
Congress party alleged bias and malice by the speaker in deciding the matter.
“The speaker deliberately delayed the proceedings pending before him since August 2019 and finally passed the order in the matter, after an inordinate delay of 20 months of the filing of the disqualification petition, that too only after the Supreme Court intervened by passing orders,” Congress stated.
During an earlier hearing in June last year, senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for Chodankar, had argued that there is urgency in the matter considering the term of the assembly was ending by March 2022, with only a few months left.
,