Team Herald
PANJIM: The appeal filed by Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Girish Chodankar challenging the Goa Assembly Speaker’s judgment dismissing his disqualification petition against 10 rebel party MLAs will come up for hearing before the special bench of the Bombay High Court on Wednesday.
Bombay High Court Chief Justice Dipankar Datta has already constituted a two-member Bench comprising Justice K K Tated and Justice Prithiviraj Chavan to hear the appeal. The hearing will be held through video conferencing.
The special division bench was constituted after Justice Mahesh Sonak recused himself from hearing the matter as he had appeared ‘for some of the respondents earlier’.
On April 20 this year, Speaker Rajesh Patnekar had dismissed two disqualification petitions filed by Congress president Girish Chodankar and MGP MLA Sudin Dhavalikar against their party MLAs for switching sides and joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019.
Dhavalikar has also filed an appeal before the High Court against the Speaker’s order. The MGP leader had sought disqualification of two party MLAs for defecting to BJP.
When contacted, Adv Dhaval Zaveri who is appearing on behalf of Dhavalikar said that their matter has not yet been mentioned on the board.
