Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly Ramesh Tawadkar on Monday mentioned that hearings in the disqualification petition against the eight Congress legislators who switched sides last year were being heard as routine and implied that there is no urgency to dispose of the matter. To justify his point, the Speaker referred to court cases spanning 5 to 10 years and squarely blamed the delay on pleas before him to the inconsistent hearing process where parties seek dates and adjournments.
Tawadkar's comments fuelled interest because of another development on the same day in Delhi, where the Supreme Court set a December 31 deadline for the Maharashtra assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar to decide the cross-petitions filed by the rival factions of Sri Sena seeking disqualification of each other's legislators.
Interestingly, a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said that procedural wranglings should not be permitted to delay a decision on the disqualification petitions. The top court also asked the Speaker to decide on the NCP petition seeking the disqualification of 9 MLAs of the Ajit Pawar group by January 31, 2024. It may be recalled that last month, the Supreme Court had asked the Maharashtra Assembly speaker to give a timeline for hearing the petitions and subsequent disposal.
Speakers across States have shown a measured indifference in handling such cases and, in the process, have exposed their biases. The Speaker is the adjudicatory authority in disqualification petitions, and in the absence of clarity on a timeline, they tend to display a partisan trait towards their political masters. The political connotations are well understood by legislators, courts and even the general public. Lest we forget, some pleas have gone on for the entire legislature term. Unfortunately, there's a grey area where the Speaker's delay, although questionable, cannot be acted against. The Constitution does not stipulate any time frame, although courts have, in several cases, questioned the Speaker and set 'reasonable' timelines. In the current Maharashtra case, the court showed no inclination to give time even against pleas of Diwali vacation and the Assembly session, even as those representing the Speaker pleaded for more time.
In Goa, two disqualification petitions filed in 2019 after 10 Congress MLAs and two from MGP crossed over to the BJP, were dismissed in 2021 after a two-year of uncertainty. One would wonder why such petitions are taking years. The delay essentially suggests that the Speaker is biding for time. Political parties have exploited the loopholes of the anti-defection law to suit their interests. In fact, massive delays in disposing of such petitions have made the entire exercise of moving the Speaker absurd. So, although Tawadkar's reasoning may sound hollow, the pace at which he is going is not surprising.
Hearing eight of the MLAs and the petitioners should ideally not take much time, and in the normal course, even a year is long enough because the Speaker, as a constitutional head of the House, had accepted the letter of the breakaway party wing to merge itself with the BJP. By rational thinking, one would not expect the Speaker to find fault in his own decision taken back then, unless there is another political coup unfolding.
As long as Tawadkar's delay does not come under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court, he is obviously going to treat the petition as a "routine matter".
