Supreme Court refuses to stay 6 Himachal Pradesh MLAs’ disqualification

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, March 18

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the disqualification of six Himachal Pradesh rebel Congress MLAs, who were disqualified by Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania on February 29 under the anti-defection law.

A Bench led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna also refused to allow them to take part in the Assembly proceedings during the pendency of the matter before the top court.

Puts Speaker’s office on notice

• Bench refuses to allow them to take part in Assembly proceedings during pendency of matter
• It, however, issued a notice to the office of the Assembly Speaker on their petition

The Bench, which also included Justice Dipankar Datta, however, issued a notice to the office of the Assembly Speaker on their petition.

“Issue a notice in the main writ petition as well as the stay application. Re-list in week commencing May 6,” the Bench said.

The Bench asked the Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker to respond to the petition in four weeks and gave one week to the petitioners to file their rejoinder, if any.

“We can issue a notice… But there will be no stay. Second, as far as a fresh election is concerned, we have to decide… But we’ll not allow you to vote and be a part of the Legislative Assembly. We won’t allow you to participate (in the proceedings of the Assembly),” Justice Khanna told senior advocate Harish Salve, who represented the petitioners.

The six rebel Congress MLAs — Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chaitanya Sharma and Devinder Kumar Bhutto — were disqualified for defying a Congress whip to be present in the House and vote in favour of the Himachal Pradesh Government during the cut motion and the Budget. They had cross-voted in the recent Rajya Sabha poll in Himachal Pradesh, resulting in the defeat of Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

Following the disqualification of the rebel Congress MLAs, the effective strength of the House has been reduced from 68 to 62 and the ruling Congress now has 34 MLAs instead of 40. Senior advocate AM Singhvi submitted on behalf of the Speaker that Article 359 had been kicked in by the notification of the elections. “No question of staying any fresh elections. There’s also no question of staying the disqualification,” Singhvi argued.

“We are not going to stay the disqualification,” Justice Khanna told Singhvi.

As senior counsel Maninder Singh said on behalf of the Election Commission that the elections were set to be notified soon, the Bench said, “They (EC) can delay it.”

“The writ petition was filed prior to the notification…Then there will be a bar,” said Justice Datta.

Senior advocate Satya Pal Jain, who appeared for the petitioner rebel Congress MLAs, pointed out that the date of filing of nominations had been notified as May 7. He urged the top court to take up the matter before that.

Asking what fundamental rights of the petitioners were violated, the Bench on March 12 wondered why the petitioners did not approach the Himachal Pradesh High Court.

Alleging that they were not given adequate opportunity to respond to the disqualification petition, the rebel Congress MLAs submitted that it amounted to violation of the principles of natural justice.

On behalf of the rebel Congress MLAs, Jain had submitted that they were given only a show-cause notice and were not supplied a copy of the petition or the annexure and that the seven-day mandatory time allowed for responding to the notice was not given to them.