Supreme Court relief to Himachal Pradesh MLAs in CPS case, stays disqualification proceedings

In a major reprieve to the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh, the Supreme Court on Friday stayed disqualification proceedings against six party MLAs earlier appointed as Chief Parliamentary Secretaries.

The SC stayed the Himachal Pradesh High Court’s order which declared as illegal and unconstitutional the protection from disqualification granted to MLAs appointed as CPSes under a state law and paved the way for their disqualification for holding the office of profit.

After the SC order, the six MLAs in question will be protected from disqualification, but will not stay as CPSes. The order came from the Bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar, who said they were not staying the entire November 13 judgment of the high court, but only paragraph 50 of the order that pertained to protection from disqualification of the said MLAs.

The SC, however, said the state government could not make any such appointments.

“That would be contrary to law,” it said after the state argued that there was no discussion in the high court regarding the reason to strike down the protection from disqualification as MLAs. The Bench posted the matter for further hearing after a month.

Senior lawyers Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Singhvi and Anand Sharma (who returned before the court after 27 years) defended the position of the Sukhu government in the matter, with the SC agreeing to their point.

With this, the cloud of political instability over the state government no longer looms. As of today, the Congress government has a majority of 38 MLAs in the 68-member House. The disqualification of these six MLAs could have changed this equation.

In January 2023, CM Sukhu had appointed six Congress MLAs — Mohan Lal Brakta (Rohru), Ashish Butail (Palampur), Ram Kumar Chaudhary (Doon), Kishori Lal (Baijnath), Sanjay Awasthi (Arki) and Sunder Singh Thakur (Kullu) as CPSes. Later, acting on a PIL, a Division Bench declared these appointments unconstitutional.

Only part of HC order stayed

The top court said it was not staying the entire November 13 judgment of the high court, but only the part that pertained to protection from disqualification of six MLAs who were appointed as CPSes