New Delhi: Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar has approached the Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court verdict which had upheld the Goa Assembly Speaker's order dismissing two petitions seeking disqualification of 12 MLAs who had switched over from their parties to the ruling BJP in 2019. The Goa bench of the Bombay High Court had delivered the verdict on February 24 on the separate pleas filed by Chodankar and an MLA of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP).
The Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president had filed a petition in the matter relating to 10 party MLAs, who had switched over to the BJP in July 2019. The MLA of the MGP had also filed a similar plea in the matter pertaining to its two MLAs, who too had joined the BJP in the same year by splitting the regional party.
In his plea filed in the apex court, Chodankar has said that the high court has committed a grave error in upholding the Speaker's order on the mistaken premise that since the 10 MLAs constituted two-third of their legislature party and had decided to merge with another party, they would enjoy the protection granted under Para 4 of the Tenth Schedule by invoking the "deeming fiction" contained in para 4(2).
Para 4 of the Tenth Schedule deals with disqualification on ground of defection not to apply in case of merger. The impugned judgement effectively holds that 2/3rd of the legislature party members by themselves can initiate and conclude valid merger of a political party under Para 4 of the Schedule X (Tenth) without any reference/role attributable to the original political party in the entire process, it said. The plea claimed that the high court judgement completely ignores the basic pre-conditions for claim of valid merger in terms of Para 4 of the Tenth Schedule which are required to be cumulatively complied with.
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The first condition is that there must be a merger of the original political party with another political party and the second condition is that subsequent to the decision of such merger of the original political party, 2/3rd members of the legislature party should agree with and adopt such merger, it said. The plea alleged that the high court judgement has given an erroneous interpretation by construing the merger of the original political party merely at the hands of two-third of any legislature party, completely disrobing the original party of any role with respect to its merger.
It is also apposite to consider the ramifications of the application of the erroneous interpretation to Para 4(2) as given by the high court in the impugned judgement, that is, if Para 4(2) is completely distinct from Para 4(1), then every legislature party which is able to muster 2/3rd of its members can merge with any other party it may see fit, for extraneous reasons that are antithetical to the intent and purpose of Schedule X (Tenth), it said. The Goa Assembly Speaker had on April 20 last year dismissed the disqualification petitions filed by Chodankar and the MGP MLA.
The high court had said that the order passed by the Speaker rejecting the disqualification petitions "cannot be said to be militating against the object of introduction of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution on the touchstone of political and constitutional morality". In the 2017 polls to the 40-member Goa Assembly, the Congress had emerged as the single largest party by winning 17 seats. But, the BJP, which bagged 13 seats, then quickly forged an alliance with some regional outfits and independents to form government. Polls to elect the new Goa Assembly were held on February 14 this year and the counting of votes is scheduled for March 10.
PTI
