PANJIM: Goa Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Monday reserved the order on whether to take on record or not the reply filed by two rebel MLAs Digambar Kamat and Michael Lobo to the disqualification petition against them by Congress president Amit Patkar.
During the hearing, Adv Abhijit Gosavi arguing on behalf of Patkar, opposed the applications filed by Kamat and Lobo to take their reply to the matter on record on the grounds that same was time-barred in view of the disqualification rules, which mandates that reply had to be filed within prescribed time. He said that there was delay and that there should not be further condonation of delay and that the proceedings be conducted without any reply as both the respondents had lost their right to file any reply.
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After submission of arguments in written, the Speaker reserved the matter for order.
During the previous hearing on November 8, the Speaker had adjourned the matter as the lawyer representing both — Lobo and Kamat was out of station.
Patkar is seeking disqualification of the then Leader of the Opposition Michael Lobo and Margao MLA Digambar Kamat for voluntarily giving up membership of the Congress party in July last year. He had also accused both the rebel MLAs of trying to hatch a conspiracy to engineer a split in the opposition party by hobnobbing with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
