PANAJI
Goa Legislative Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Friday heard the final arguments in a disqualification petition filed against eight MLAs, who had defected from Congress to join BJP in September, 2022. The plea was filed by Congress leader Girish Chodankar in November 2022.
The Speaker has granted time till Monday, October 28 to all the parties to submit their written arguments, if any, following which the verdict would be pronounced.
Earlier this month, a similar plea, filed by Congress leader Dominic John Noronha of Dramapur-Sirlim, was dismissed by the Speaker. These developments come following directions from the Supreme Court to the Speaker to dispose of the disqualification pleas before November 4, when the matter is scheduled to be heard next.
Then eight Congress MLAs ” Digambar Kamat, Michael Lobo, Delilah Lobo, Kedar Naik, Sankalp Amonkar, Rajesh Faldesai, Aleixo Sequeira, and Rudolf Fernandes ”joined the BJP.
Two more disqualification petitions filed by Congress president Amit Patkar against the eight rebel MLAs and a separate plea against Margao MLA Digambar Kamat and Calangute MLA Michael Lobo for instrumenting the switch over are also pending before the Speaker.
The petitioners before the Speaker had sought disqualification of the eight MLAs under the Tenth Schedule of Constitution of India and had prayed that pending hearing and final disposal of the matter, the MLAs be restrained from functioning as Members of the State Legislative Assembly and from holding any Constitutional post or office of profit.
