PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has concluded hearings in the disqualification pleas filed by the Congress and the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party challenging the orders of the Speaker who declined to disqualify the defectors who switched to the BJP without resigning first. The matter has now been reserved for orders.
The Congress case was argued by Adv Vivek Tankha, a Rajya Sabha MP. He told the Court that the Speaker’s decision was “contrary to the aims and objectives of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India i.e prevention of defection.”
“For a valid merger under the Tenth Schedule, a twin test is required to be satisfied i.e. firstly there must be a decision of the original political party to be merged and secondly 2/3rd of legislative members should agree to such merger. Legislative party by itself cannot merge the political party. There is no concept of merger of a legislature party in the Tenth schedule of the Constitution,” Adv Tankha argued.
“The interpretation given by the speaker defeats the very purpose of the Tenth schedule which was enacted in the year 1985 and thereafter strengthened by amendment in the year 2003,” he added.
“If the interpretation of the speaker is allowed, then it will be a death knell of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution and will allow detection, which will defeat the entire objective of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which gives recognition to the political parties,” Adv Tankha said adding that “the 10 defected MLAs in their response to the disqualification Petition has not even pleaded that there was a merger of the original political party and therefore there was no question of any valid merger in terms of para four of Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.”
The Congress cause was supported by the Goa Forward Party which filed a plea of intervention. A separate petition was filed by the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party placing forward similar arguments.
The order is now awaited.
