PANAJI
Goa Speaker, Ramesh Tawadkar, on Monday confirmed having received two disqualification petitions against eight legislators who claimed to have split from the Congress and merged with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in mid-September and said he will issue notice and hear the parties within the next 15-20 days.
Tawadkar who was speaking to the media said he will have to study the petitions and accordingly issue notices to all the parties to be heard.
He said, one of the petitions has been filed by Domnick Noronha and another by former GPCC president Girish Chodankar.
Tawadkar said, the petition filed by Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president, Amit Patkar in July seeking to disqualify Digambar Kamat and Michael Lobo for "anti-party activity" and their alleged role in a failed attempt at spliting the party will also be taken up simultaneously.
Reacting to a poser by journalists on the undue delay in quasi-judicial proceedings of disqualification petitions before the Speaker's office, Tawadkar blamed it on the "complexity" of the law.
"The issue is complicated. It has to be studied to take decisions," Tawadkar said.
Eight of the 11 Congress MLAS -- Michael Lobo, Digambar Kamat, Aleixo Sequeira, Delilah Lobo, Kedar Naik, Rajesh Phaldesai, Rudolf Fernandes and Sankalp Amonkar -- claimed to have split from the Congress and merged with the BJP on September 14.
The anti-defection law (Xth Schedule of the Constitution) prohibits defections but has a provision for a split in political parties by at least two-third of the number of legislators of a political party to merge with another.
In the previous term of the Goa legislature too, the Congress had similarly suffered a desertion by a chunk of 10 MLAs back in 2019. The disqualification petition filed by Chodankar then was dismissed by then Speaker Rajesh Patnekar citing the 2/3rd rule for split and merger but not before the quasi-judicial process took a meandering route between delays and challenges in the courts.
Chodankar's challenge of Patnekar's orders is pending before the Supreme Court of India which is expected to take it up for hearing now on November 17 to adjudicate on crucial technical matters related to whether the term "split" in a political party in the anti-defection law pertains merely to the legislative wing or also the organisational wing.
Meanwhile, the Congress State president, Amit Patkar, said an official petition on behalf of the party will also be filed before the Speaker soon.
