PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa today has disposed Girish Chodankar’s petition stating that the HC hopes that the Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly will decide the disqualification petitions in time-bound manner.
The HC was hearing the petition filed by Girish Chodankar who had contended that the Speaker is deliberately keeping the disqualification petition pending when the law clearly states that disqualified MLAs must not be allowed to be in power even for a day.
He had prayed that the Speaker be directed to decide the matter in a time-bound manner more particularly in terms of law laid down by the Supreme Court that disqualification petitions be decided within three months.
The HC while delivering the judgement said, “Since there are four disqualification petitions pending and the speaker is hearing disqualification petitions, hence we are not inclined to pass any direction to the Speaker to decide Girish Chodankar’s petition within any time frame but we expect that the Speaker decides his petition as fast as possible.”
The Speaker had contended that he had already decided to decide the disqualification petitions in sequence as it is filed and accordingly hearing on the disqualification petition first filed by Congress President Amit Patkar against the then Leader of the Opposition Michael Lobo and MLA Digambar Kamat has been initiated and it will be decided first.
Patkar had filed his disqualification petitions against the two MLAs in July last year.
On Friday, the Special Bench comprising Justice M S Karnik and Justice Valmiki SA Menezes delivered the judgement. The Petitioner Girish Chodankar has welcomed the decision of the HC and said that he expects the Speaker to stand by his contention before the court.
