PANAJI
The High Court of Bombay at Goa has issued notices to Legislative Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar and eight defecting MLAs following a petition challenging the Speaker’s dismissal of their disqualification plea. The court has sought responses by 2 April, when it is likely to hear the case for admission.
Sirlim resident Dominic John Noronha filed the writ petition last year, urging the court to cancel the Speaker’s 14 October 2022 order. He argued that the eight MLAs should have been disqualified under the Tenth Schedule of the Indian Constitution and ceased to be Assembly members from 14 September 2022.
Noronha claimed the Speaker wrongly dismissed his plea, citing the party’s merger and the requirement that two-thirds of the legislature party must support such a merger. The petition also argued that the Speaker misinterpreted Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule, rendering subparagraph 2 meaningless if both conditions were considered mandatory.
