PANJIM: The Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) has approached the Supreme Court challenging the order of the High Court of Bombay at Goa dismissing the Writ Petition that sought disqualification of the 10 defected MLAs.
In its order on February, the High Court upheld the order of the Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly dismissing the Disqualification Petition filed against the 10 MLAs who had crossed the floor over to BJP in the Goa Legislative Assembly in 2019.
“Conveniently, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly allowed protection to the erstwhile members of the Indian National Congress (INC) by invoking the protection guaranteed to a legislature party member granted only when the original political party of a member of the House (in this case, the INC) merges with another party. Curiously, the Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly was pleased to hold that the ‘deemed’ merger of the INC had taken place with BJP and, thereby, afforded protection to the defecting members of the House,” petitioner GPCC President Girish Chodankar said in the petition filed before the Supreme Court.
He further said that Speaker’s verdict was upheld by the High Court, in teeth of the settled principles of merger of a political party under Schedule X passed by the Full Bench of the very same High Court.
Chodankar said that the interpretation given by the High Court to the Para 4 of 10th Schedule is against the basic spirit of ‘democracy’, which is basic feature of our Constitution.
“If the interpretation given by the High Court is allowed to continue, it will have serious consequences in respect of the democratic and electorate process in the country and this could lead to situation wherein political parties would be able to have MLAs in the House without even contesting elections,” he said expressing confidence that Supreme Court will interpret the 10th Schedule in consonance with the spirit and objective of enactment of the 10th Schedule.
