New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the 6 disqualified Congress MLAs, which of their fundamental right was violated by the Himachal Pradesh assembly speaker’s action against them?
A bench comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna, Dipankar Datta, and Prashant Kumar Mishra asked senior advocate Satya Pal Jain, representing the MLAs, why the petitioners did not move the Himachal Pradesh High Court. The 6 Congress MLAs were disqualified for defying party whip and voting against the party nominee during the Rajya Sabha polls.
Jain submitted before the bench that it is one of the rare cases where the MLAs have been disqualified within 18 hours. The bench queried the counsel, what is the fundamental right violated here? The counsel replied that the petitioners have been duly elected by the people. The bench pointed out that it is not a fundamental right.
Jain contended before the bench that would be led by senior advocate Harish Salve but Salve could not join the proceedings. After hearing submissions, the apex court scheduled the matter for further hearing on Monday.
Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania had on February 29, 2024 disqualified six MLAs for defying the party whip in not voting for A M Singhvi, a candidate set up by Congress party.
Six rebel MLAs had cross-voted in the recent Rajya Sabha elections after which, the Speaker had disqualified them for defying the whip. Following their cross-voting on February 27, Congress candidate Abhishek Singhvi was defeated while BJP leader Harsh Mahajan won.
The six MLAs are: Rajinder Singh Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Chaitanya Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, and Davinder Bhutto. The Himachal Pradesh government has filed a caveat in the Supreme Court seeking to be heard before it passes any order on the disqualification of six MLAs.
The disqualified MLAs, in their plea before the court, questioned the decision for having not been given sufficient time to respond to notice. The MLAs, in their petition, alleged violation of natural justice and said that they were not given an opportunity to respond to the disqualification order.
