Team Herald
PANJIM: Goa Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Monday said that he will hear within a fortnight disqualification petitions filed against eight rebel Congress MLAs, who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in September this year.
Speaking to mediapersons, Tawadkar said notices to both, the petitioners and the respondents will be issued next week so that the hearing in the disqualification petitions filed against eight former Congress MLAs be held within next 15 days.
Tawadkar said that in all three disqualification petitions are before him, two filed against eight former Congress MLAs by former Congress president Girish Chodankar and Domnic Noronha, and another disqualification petition filed by Congress President Amit Patkar against two MLAs Digambar Kamat and Michael Lobo in July this year. Patkar had prayed for disqualification of Lobo and Kamat for voluntarily giving up membership of the party.
The Speaker attributed the delay in decision making in defection cases to complexity of the matters. “The matter is very complicated and has to be studied properly to take a decision,” he said adding that he will also study whether to club the two petitions filed by Chodankar and Noronha.
To a question, Tawadkar said that the Supreme Court decision is not binding on him to decide the matter expeditiously. “Supreme Court had passed such order related to the disqualification petition filed in 2019,” he said.
