No immediate relief for disqualified Himachal Congress MLAs in Supreme Court as case deferred for Monday; lawyer calls it ‘rare’ matter, Bench asks why not move HC
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TNR Desk
The case pertaining to disqualification of six rebel Himachal Pradesh Congress MLAs that was heard in the Supreme Court on Tuesday (March 12, 2024) has now been deferred for next Monday (March 17).
The case was heard by a three-judge bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Dipankar Dutta and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra.
Senior BJP leader and former MP from Chandigarh Satya Pal Jain represented the rebel MLAs in the absence of leading lawyer Harish Salve. At the outset, Jain sought an adjournment saying they were being “led by Salve who was unable to join today”.
Justice Khanna asked Jain why couldn’t they move the Himachal Pradesh High Court. “What’s the fundamental right,” asked Justice Khanna. As Jain replied “we have been elected”, Justice Khanna said “that’s not a fundamental right”.
Jain said it was a rare case where within 18 hours, the MLAs had been disqualified from the Vidhan Sabha. Justice Khanna said, “That’s disputed by them (Himachal government). Alright, we will hear it on Monday.”
Details accessed by The Newz Radar from the Supreme Court website showed the case (WPC No. 156/2024) was listed at serial number 36. The petitioner is Chaitanya Sharma (disqualified Congress MLA from Gagret) while the respondent is the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly Speaker. The advocate on record for Chaitanya is Mrinal Gopal Elker and for the Himachal government, which has filed a caveat, are VKC Law Offices and Nishanth Patil.
Congress rebel Chaitanya Sharma, supported by other disqualified MLAs Sudhir Sharma, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Ravi Thakur and Davinder Bhutto, have filed the petition challenging disqualification from the Vidhan Sabha by Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania. The Speaker took the action under the anti-defection law as the six MLAs allegedly violated the Congress whip for voting for the passage of the budget in the Assembly.
The rebel MLAs have contested the decision to disqualify them by the Speaker and have sought relief from the apex court. The Assembly Speaker had disqualified these MLAs based on their absence during the budget session in the Assembly. The MLAs have deemed the Speaker’s decision incorrect and have demanded its revocation.
The rebel MLAs were initially holed up in a Panchkula hotel and then relocated to a private hotel at Rishikesh in Uttarakhand. Apart from the six Congress rebels, three Independent legislators and two BJP MLAs, Bikram Thakur and Trilok Jamwal, have also been residing at the same hotel.
The Himachal Pradesh Congress has been embroiled in an internal turmoil following the Rajya Sabha election debacle. The Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government had to face an embarrassing situation when party’s Rajya Sabha nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi, a renowned legal luminary, faced defeat despite the Congress having comfortable majority with 40 MLAs in the 68-member Vidhan Sabha. The BJP had 25 MLAs of its own but it managed the votes of the six Congress rebels and three Independent MLAs. BJP’s Harsh Mahajan won after a draw of lots as both the candidates were tied at 34 votes each.
