The Punjab and Haryana High Court Monday directed the Haryana assembly speaker to decide within four months on the disqualification of five legislators who defected. Justice Ajay Tiwari of the high court issued the directive to assembly Speaker Harmohinder Singh Chatha on the petition of the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), which sought disqualification of five of its legislators who defected to the ruling Congress party in November last year.<\/p>\n
Counsel for the speaker as well as the five lawmakers contested the high court ruling, and contended that the high court had no jusrisdiction over the speaker\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Justice Tiwari, however, observed that \u201cnobody is above law\u201d and that the defection of the five lawmakers had given the Bhoopinder Singh Hooda government legitimacy.<\/p>\n
Opposition HJC president Kuldeep Bishnoi had filed a petition in the high court demanding disqualification of the five legislators, who claimed they had \u201cmerged\u201d their group with the ruling Congress. The move helped the Hooda government gain simple majority in the assembly.<\/p>\n
The five legislators were Sat Pal Sangwan, Vinod Bhayana, Narender Singh, Zile Singh and Dharam Singh. They joined the Congress Nov 9 last year, only days after the assembly election results were declared and the Congress failed to get simple majority on its own.<\/p>\n
Senior advocate Satya Pal Jain, appearing for Bishnoi, told the high court that though the petition for disqualification of the five legislators was submitted Dec 16, the speaker was taking long time to give his decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe speaker failed even to get reply from these five MLAs over one year, though the anti-defection rules stipulated that the reply was to be filed within seven days,\u201d Jain pointed out.<\/p>\n
Bishnoi challenged the five MLAs\u2019 contention that their group \u201cmerged\u201d with the Congress, saying this was done without his consent as the HJC president alone had the power to merge the party with another.<\/p>\n
Bishnoi later moved the high court, alleging malafide against the speaker and alleged the delay was intentional. He said Chatha was adjourning the matter on one pretext or the other.<\/p>\n
Chatha\u2019s counsel contended Monday that the court did not have jurisdiction over the issue and cannot interfere with the functioning of the speaker.<\/p>\n
Counsel for the five MLAs also said that the court had no power to give direction to the speaker to decide the case within any particular time.<\/p>\n
However, the high court observed that no one was above the law. It said that the defection by the legislators had given legitimacy to the Hooda government and had they not joined, the government may not have been formed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Punjab and Haryana High Court Monday directed the Haryana assembly speaker to decide within four months on the disqualification of five legislators who defected. Justice Ajay Tiwari of the high court issued the directive to assembly Speaker Harmohinder Singh Chatha on the petition of the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), which sought disqualification of five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-law-news"],"yoast_head":"\n