PANJIM: Justice M S Sonak of the High Court of Bombay at Goa on Monday recused himself from hearing a petition against the Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly Rajesh Patnekar in a disqualification petition against 10 sitting MLAs.
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Girish Chodankar had last week approached the High Court challenging Patnekar’s order dismissing the disqualification petition filed against 10 former Congress MLAs who defected to join the BJP in July 2019.
When the matter came up for hearing before the Division bench of Justice Sonak and Justice M S Jawalkar, Sonak said he will recuse from hearing the plea as he had appeared ‘for some of the respondents earlier’. The matter will now be listed before the Special Division Bench for which an appropriate request will have to be made by the petitioner.
The Speaker in April 2021 had dismissed the petitions filed by Congress and MGP seeking disqualification of 12 MLAs (two were former MGP MLAs), who switched over to BJP from their respective political parties. The Speaker said there was no merit in the claims raised by the applicants.
