High Court dismisses disqualification pleas against 12 rebel MLAs

PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Thursday dismissed the appeals filed by the Congress and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) against the 12 rebel MLAs.
Both, the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Girish Chodankar and MGP legislator Sudin Dhavalikar had challenged the Goa Assembly Speaker Rajesh Patnekar’s verdict dated April 2021, dismissing their disqualification petitions against the rebel MLAs.
Soon after the judgement was pronounced Chodankar said that the party will file an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the High Court order.  
Chodankar had challenged the Speaker’s order holding the merger of 10 rebel MLAs as valid. The 10 MLAs had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in July 2019.
Similarly, Dhavalikar had filed an appeal against the Speaker’s order against two MLAs Babu Ajgaonkar and Deepak Pauskar who joined the BJP in March 2019.
The Speaker had held that the 12 respondents did not attract disqualification as the deeming fiction under paragraph 4(2) of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution operated in their favour.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Manish Pitale and Justice R N Laddha in the order stated that the Speaker was justified in holding that the respondent did not attract disqualification under the Tenth Schedule and that the petitioners were unable to make a case out for interference or review the impugned order.
Dissatisfied with the order, Congress president Chodankar said that the party will challenge the High Court order before the Supreme Court since the very existence of the original political party is in question. The order will set a bad precedent and encourage defections.
On the other hand, BJP general secretary Adv Narendra Sawaikar welcomed the High Court judgement dismissing the petitions filed by the Congress and the MGP seeking the disqualification. He said that while pronouncing the judgement the division bench has observed that all the issues like deeming provision, split, merger, effect of full bench judgement and other judgments etc have been considered. At the same time he said that he would read the judgement before making any further statement.