HP High Court issues notice to Himachal Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania

Shimla, April 10

The HP High Court today issued a notice to the Speaker of the Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha on a petition filed by three Independent MLAs, wherein they alleged that he was not accepting their resignations from the Legislative Assembly and sought the intervention of the court in this regard.

The High Court also issued notices to the Secretary, Vidhan Sabha, and the Election Commission. After hearing the counsel for the petitioners, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice MS Ramachandra Rao and Justice Ajay Mohan Goel directed all of them to file their replies by April 24.

The three Independent MLAs Hoshiyar Singh (Dehra), KL Thakur (Nalagarh) and Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur) had submitted their resignations from the membership of the Assembly to its Secretary on March 22. Later, they had met Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania and requested him to accept their resignations. They had also met Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla.

As the Speaker has not yet accepted their resignations, the three MLAs have approached the High Court on the matter. The trio have filed a petition against the non-acceptance of the resignations and issuance of show-cause notices to them by the Speaker. They have contended that they have voluntarily submitted their resignations without any coercion and the Speaker should accept them.

The petitioners alleged that the Speaker instead of accepting their resignations had issued them show-cause notices for seeking their replies in this regard. They alleged that the action of the Speaker was arbitrary and wrong.