Team Herald
PANJIM: Goa Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar is finally set to announce the verdict on the disqualification petition filed by former Congress president Girish Chodankar against eight rebel MLAs who defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in September 2022.
According to a notice issued by the Speaker’s office, the judgment will be delivered at 5.30 pm on Friday, November 1. The final arguments were heard in the matter for two consecutive days last week. The Speaker had also asked both the parties to submit their written arguments on October 28.
The Congress petition calls for the disqualification of its eight rebel MLAs on grounds of violating the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court had earlier directed the Speaker to decide the petitions before November 4, the date on which the matter is likely to come before the apex court.
Since the hearing on the disqualification petition was delayed for nearly two years, the petitioner approached the High Court of Bombay at Goa and the Supreme Court, seeking its intervention to secure a hearing.
In May last year, the High Court of Bombay at Goa had disposed Chodankar’s petition hoping that the Speaker would decide the disqualification petitions in a time- bound manner.
The Speaker had already dismissed the first disqualification petition filed by Dominic Noronha against eight rebel MLAs, who defected from Congress and joined the BJP on September 14, 2022.