PANAJI
The Supreme Court on Friday took up the special leave petition filed by Congress leader Girish Chodankar seeking disqualification of the eight MLAs who defected to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in September 2022 and has directed issue of notice to the respondents.
The Bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar will now hear the matter on the issue of its admission on April 29. Chodankar’s earlier plea of 2022, has also been clubbed with it.
Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar, who dismissed Chodankar’s plea for their disqualification and all the eight defector-MLAs -- Digambar Kamat, Michael Lobo, Aleixo Sequeira, Kedar Naik, Rudolf Fernandes, Delilah Lobo, Rajesh Phaldesia and Sankalp Amonkar -- have been named respondents in the SLP.
Chodankar who had filed the plea before Tawadkar in 2022, had during its pendency approached first the HC and subsequently the SC accusing the Speaker of frivolously delaying the disposal of his petitions.
Tawadkar then finally disposed of the petitions on November 1 last year holding the eight MLAs defection to be as per the rules laid down in the Xth Schedule for ‘merger’ of parties but not before being directed to do so by the SC. Now through the current SLP before the SC, Chodankar seeks to challenge Tawadkar’s November 1 order.
