PANJIM: Goa Legislative Assembly Speaker, Rajesh Patnekar will hear disqualification petition on February 26 filed against ten former Congress MLAs, who quit the party and joined ruling BJP in 2019. The petition would be heard after almost one and half year of its filing.
The decision comes hours after the Supreme Court postponed the matter to February 9 which is hearing the Congress President Girish Chodankar’s plea for directions to Speaker.
“All the parties would be heard,” said Patnekar revealing that petition is listed for hearing on February 26.
In July 2019, ten of the Congress MLAs in Goa quit the party and merged with BJP, thereby increasing the strength of the ruling party to 40 from 27. The disqualification petition is pending before Assembly Speaker Rajesh Patnekar since August 2019. In July 2020, the Speaker had granted first hearing of the matter.
Chodankar in his petition had maintained that the MLAs have incurred disqualification under Article 191(2) of the Constitution read with para 2 of the Tenth Schedule and are liable to be disqualified as Member of the Legislative Assembly.
Disqualification petition had been filed against Deputy Speaker and Canacona MLA Isidore Fernandes, Deputy Chief Minister and Quepem MLA Chandrakant Kavlekar, WRD Minister and Velim MLA Filipe Neri Rodrigues, Revenue Minister and Taleigao MLA Jennifer Monserrate, Panjim MLA Atanasio Monserrate, Cuncolim MLA Clafasio Dias, Nuvem MLA Wilfred D’Sa and Tivim MLA Nilkant Halarnkar.
The Supreme Court had issued notice to the Speaker in August 2019 over petition filed by Chodankar and since then the matter remained pending, following several adjournments.
