Chandigarh, March 13
Two Haryana Congress MLAs, Dharam Pal Malik (Gohana) and Rakesh Kamboj (Indri), close associates of former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal and his MP son Kuldeep Bishnoi, were disqualified from the membership of the House here today by Speaker Raghubir Singh Kadian for “voluntarily giving up the membership of the Indian National Congress, on the ticket of which they had won the elections.”
The disqualification petitions were filed against them by Congress MLAs, Jitender Malik and Ramesh Gupta, on January 2.
Pronouncing his identical judgements, separately for both MLAs, here this evening Kadian said: “In terms of Article 191(2), read with tenth schedule of the Constitution of India and the Haryana Legislative Assembly (disqualification of members on ground of defection) Rules, 1986, the respondents (Malik and Kamboj) are disqualified from the membership of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha with immediate effect though they had voluntarily left the membership of the Indian National Congress on December 2, 2007, (when Bishnoi had announced the formation of his Haryana Janhit Congress)… and their seats are declared vacant.”
With the disqualification of the two MLAs, the strength of the Congress has come down to 65 in the House of 90.
The way has also been cleared for two Assembly byelections, which have to be held within six months. The byelections will be held on the basis of the old constituencies and not on the basis on new delimitation.
Another disqualification petition filed by Shadi Lal Batra (Rohtak) against Bhajan Lal is still pending before the Speaker, who had adjourned its hearing till March 24 in view of a bereavement in Bhajan Lal’s family. It will be the last opportunity for Bhajan Lal to lead his evidence.
In his judgement running into 50 pages, Kadian went in detail to show how enough opportunity was given to the respondents to file their reply and lead evidence to rebut the allegations levelled against them in the petitions.
Bhajan Lal and his associates had moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court also on March 4 for a stay on the proceedings before the Speaker. However, the court sought more documentary evidence from them and adjourned the case till March
18.
Kadian had given the “last and final” opportunity on March 11 to lead evidence. However, Malik and Kamboj filled separate applications stating that since Kadian had not resigned from the Congress after becoming speaker, they had no faith in him and the proceedings against them should be referred to a committee of the House.
Finding “no valid reason” in their contention, the Speaker declined their prayer and reserved his judgement, which was pronounced today.
While the petitioners were represented by former advocate-generals of Punjab Harbhagwan and Sanjiv Bansal, the respondents were represented by former BJP MP Satya Pal Jain and Chander Yadav.
