PANAJI
Goa Legislative Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Thursday dismissed the disqualification petitions filed by Goa State Congress president Amit Patkar against former Leader of the Opposition Michael Lobo and Margao MLA Digambar Kamat.
Patkar filed the petitions arguing that both Lobo and Kamat had "voluntarily resigned" from the Congress citing their staying aloof from the party in July 2022, less than four months after the 2022 assembly results.
Patkar formally filed the petition before Tawadkar in mid-July seeking their disqualification as MLAs, and two months later in mid-September, the Lobo-Kamat duo were actually part of a group of eight MLAs of the Congress that defected although they claimed that they were two-thirds in number and were merging with the BJP.
Other than Lobo and Kamat, the group also comprised of Lobo's wife Delilah, Aleixo Sequeira, Sankalp Amonkar, Kedar Naik, Rajesh Paldesai and Rudolph Fernandes.
Following this development, another Congress leader Girish Chodankar filed a petition before the Speaker seeking disqualification of all eight MLAs. Patkar too has filed a third petition for disqualification of the eight MLAs. Another petition has been filed by a private citizen too.
Meanwhile, Abhijit Gosavi, who represented Patkar, cited a recent judgement of the Supreme Court to argue that petitions under the Xth Schedule cannot be kept pending for long and have to be disposed within a reasonable time limit.
Following the arguments, Tawadkar passed his orders dismissing the plea on grounds that the Congress party had failed to submit the list of its MLAs as required under the Goa Legislative Assembly Rules, 1986 (Disqualification on Ground of Defection), which makes it mandatory for legislative party leaders to do so within 30 days of constitution of the House.
Meanwhile, Patkar's other petition seeking disqualification of all eight MLAs who switched to the BJP and the petitions of Chodankar and another private citizen continue to survive before the Speaker.
