PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has issued notices to the Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly & respondent 8 defected MLAs in the petition filed by Congress leader Girish Chodankar pleading to direct the Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly to decide the disqualification petition against the defected MLAs of Congress within 90 days.
The bench of Justices Bharat Deshpande and B P Colabawalla directed that replies be filed within two weeks.
The petition has been filed by the Congress’ Girish Chodankar seeking the High Court’s intervention to direct the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly to dispose off the disqualification pleas -- including that filed by Girish -- within a period of three months.
Chodankar in his petition has pointed to a precedent set by the Supreme Court in the case of Manipur, where the Supreme Court had ruled that given the inordinate delay in hearing the case, the members who faced disqualification petitions could not hold official positions like being ministers.
The eight Congress MLAs had joined the ruling BJP in September 2022.
