the goan I network
PANAJI
The Goa Pradesh Congress Committee President Girish Chodankar on Wednesday welcomed the timely decision of the Supreme Court upholding the disqualification of 17 Karnataka MLAs by the then legislative assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar.
In a press note, Chodankar said, “As the term of the legislative assembly is fixed for five years, the Speaker must decide the cases regarding the disqualification of members in a time-bound manner. This will give clarity on whether MLAs against whom the disqualification petition is filed have the right to hold office illegally.”
“Even the Supreme Court which handles lakhs of matters considers it appropriate and rightly gives priority to such matters regarding disqualification, as various disqualifications prescribed under statutes are enacted to maintain the purity of administration,” Chodankar said.
Chodankar slammed the Goa speaker in contrast, saying that he was acting completely contrary and sleeping over the petition which was filed before him against 10 MLAs seeking disqualification of those defected MLAs. “It is rather unfortunate and I fail to understand why the Speaker is taking so much time to decide on the disqualification petitions,” Chodankar said.
Chodankar suggested that if the Speaker failed to decide the case within three months, then the High Court should entertain the petition to decide on it so that the entire legal process can be completed including appealing in the Supreme Court within the shortest possible time so that MLAs who have incurred disqualification should not be allowed to enjoy the benefits of being MLA illegally for too long.
“I urge the Goa speaker to be impartial and expeditiously decide the case at the earliest so that aggrieved party take the next step to get justice,” Chodankar concluded saying that it was more than three months since the Congress petition and the speaker had not even issued notices to the Goa Congress MLAs who defected to the BJP.
