Six dissident Cong MLAs disqualified from Himachal Vidhan Sabha for ignoring party whip
Shimla, Feb 29
The six dissident Congress MLAs who ignored the party whjp have been disqualified from the Vidhan Sabha. This was stated Himachal Vidhan Sabha speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania who was speaking in capacity of Chariman of the tribunal in a media meet here today. As per per provisions of tenth schedule, under which Anti defection law is defined speaker has to hear the matter as a Chairman of the tribunal.
Repsondents have incurred diqualification under para 2 of law and therefore the respondents cease to be members of this August house, he stated .
On Wednesday the Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania reserved the decision in the petition for disqualification moved by Congress Vidhyak Dal yesterday for defying the Congress legislators party whip twice during discussion on the finance or Money bills leading to short of quorum on Tuesday.
The MLAs involved are Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Inderdut Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma and Devinder Bhutto. It has been alleged that they violated the whip issued by the Congress party twice, due to which their membership may be disqualified under the Anti defection law laid in the tenth schedule of the Indian Constitution.
The matter was filed before the house on Tuesday, as notices were served to the six concerned MLAs. The same were received by them after which the hearing was held on Wednesday from 4PM to around 6:30PM.” Senior Advocate Kamat represented the Congress legislative party and Senior advocate Satpal Jain represented the six MLAs. After hearing the arguments by senior counsels of both parties, the decision was reserved by the speaker, on Wedenesday.
Resultant the cross voting Abhishek Manu Singhvi of Congress party lost the Rajya Sabha polls. Both contesting candidates got 34 votes each, and later the decision had to be taken through a draw of a slip, in which luck favoured BJP, which won.
The Anti defection law has been included in the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution in 1985 by the 52nd Amendment Act. It lays down the process by which legislators may be disqualified on grounds of defection by the Presiding Officer of a legislature based on a petition by any other member of the House. The law applies to both Parliament and state assembly.
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