Team Herald
NEW DELHI: Goa Assembly Speaker Rajesh Patnekar has ducked again in the case of two petitions against him before the Supreme Court for delaying the decision sought on disqualification of the MLAs who defected to the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), many of whom became ministers.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sharad Arvind Bobde on Tuesday reluctantly allowed him two more weeks to reply and postponed hearing on both the petitions clubbed together to August 28. Two other judges on the Bench were Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.
In a brief identical order in the Goa disqualification matters in both the petitions, the Court said: “In view of the letter circulated by Ms Anannya Ghosh, Advocate-on-Record for Respondent No 1 seeking adjournment for filing the additional affidavit, put up after two weeks.”
The Speaker was given ample time of four weeks originally to file a reply to the petition filed by Goa Congress president Girish Chodankar on June 6 against 10 Congress MLAs defecting to the BJP to gain plum posts. He said that due to coronavirus his staff is not coming to office and so he could not get ready the affidavit in reply.
The same excuse was advanced again on Tuesday as his counsel prayed for two more weeks, citing the corona virus still prevalent in Goa.
Since the second petition of Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) MLA Ramkrishna (Sudin) Dhavalikar is tagged to Chodankar’s petition, hearing on it was also put off to August 28. In his petition, he has made not only the Speaker a party but also Deputy Chief Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar (62) and PWD Minister Deepak Prabhu Pausar (46) who deserted his party to become cabinet ministers.
Meanwhile, hearing in case of another petition on disqualification of six BSP MLAs to the Congress in Rajasthan before another Bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra was adjourned to Thursday to await decision of the pending petition before the High Court in Jaipur.
