New Delhi, June 25
In a major setback to the Congress party’s efforts to garner the support of independent MLAs in Haryana for its candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections, the Supreme Court today declined to interfere with the order of Assembly Speaker disqualifying six legislators under the anti- defection law earlier in the day.
“We are not inclined to pass any interim order... because the order of the Speaker as such has not been challenged in the petition,” a vacation Bench of Mr Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Mr Justice P.V. Reddi said after over two-hour-long arguments on the affected MLAs’ petitions.
Since a joint petition by eight MLAs was filed on June 21 after the Speaker had issued notices to them on June 14 under the anti-defection law as they allegedly had joined the Congress, today’s order disqualifying four of them and two others belonging to the RPI and the NCP had not been specifically under challenge before
the apex court. The court gave option to the MLAs’ counsel A.M. Singhvi either to withdraw the earlier petition and file a fresh one or suitably amend it to enable them to challenge the Speaker’s order passed this morning.
As Singhvi opted for amending the petition instead of withdrawing it, the court adjourned the hearing for two weeks without passing any interim order.
The Bench did not agree with Singhvi’s plea that the court should pass an iterim direction staying the Speaker’s order and making it subject to the final outcome on the petition of eight MLAs, filed earlier.
Speaker Satbir Singh Kadiyan earlier in the day had disqualified four independent MLAs — Rajinder Singh Bisla, Dev Raj Dewan, Bhim Sein Mehta and Jai Prakash Gupta — and two other legislators, Karan Singh Dalal and Jagjit Singh Sangwan, who had contested the Assembly polls as nominees of the RPI and the NCP, respectively, for their “joining” the Congress.
Apart from Bisla, Dewan, Mehta and Gupta, four other independent MLAs Daryao Singh, Moola Ram, Tejvir Singh and Udai Bhan had moved the Supreme Court on June 21 challenging the
initiation of the anti-defection law proceedings against them by the Speaker. They had accused the Speaker of acting at the behest of Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala whose son Ajay Chautala is one of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections from the state.
Singhvi argued that today’s order of the Speaker disqualifying the MLAs would amount to interfering in the ongoing Rajya Sabha poll process because he had passed it by exercising his judicial power, which is prohibited under Article 329 (B) of the Constitution.
“Disqualification of the MLAs will drastically affect the electoral college in 87-member state assembly, which will amount to interfering in the election process,” he contended.
However, senior advocate Shanti Bhushan and Kirit Raval, appearing for INLD MLAs Nafe Singh Rathi and Krishan Lal, on whose petitions the Speaker had taken the action, contested the claim of Singhvi, saying there was no bar on the Speaker under the Constitution to adjudicate a matter under the anti-defection law even if the poll process was on.
Shanti Bhushan said the six MLAs, who were disqualified by the Speaker, had “joined” the Congress and had even attended the CLP meeting. “They had given interviews to the media about their joining the Congress and the cassettes of their interviews, obtained from various TV channels, had been placed before the Speaker as evidence of their admission of joining the Congress,” he said.
“Since an independent MLA was prohibited from joining any political party under the anti-defection law, the order for their disqualification by the Speaker was perfectly as per the provisions of the law”, Shanti Bhushan said.
Raval on the other hand said the entire case of the MLAs was based on the presumption that the Speaker’s action would affect the Rajya Sabha election, which was not a solid reason for interfering in his order.
“An apprehended and assumed affect on the election process would not be a subject matter of judicial review,” Raval said.
