Goa Congress chief moves SC against Bombay HC verdict upholding Speaker’s order on defections

New Delhi, March 9

Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court verdict upholding the Goa Assembly Speaker’s order dismissing petitions seeking disqualification of 12 MLAs, including 10 from Congress, who joined the ruling BJP in 2019.

Chodankar had filed a petition in the matter relating to 10 party MLAs, who had switched over to the BJP in July 2019. An MLA of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) had filed a similar petition pertaining to its two MLAs who had switched over to the BJP by splitting their original party.

The Goa Assembly Speaker had on April 20, 2021, dismissed the disqualification petitions filed by Chodankar and the MGP MLA.

The Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court on February 24 dismissed their petitions against the Speaker’s decision, saying the Speaker’s order rejecting the disqualification petitions “cannot be said to be militating against the object of introduction of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution on the touchstone of political and constitutional morality”.

In the 2017 polls to the 40-member Goa Assembly, the Congress had emerged as the single largest party by winning 17 seats. But the BJP—which got just 13 seats—forged an alliance with regional parties and independents to form the government.

Goa went to polls on February 14 this year and the counting of votes is scheduled to take place March 10. Seeking the Supreme Court’s intervention, the petitioner submitted that the High Court’s verdict would lead to “political chaos and would further promote and encourage evils of defections…”.

Chodankar said the high court has committed a “grave error” in upholding the Speaker’s order on the “mistaken premise” that since the 10 MLAs constituted two-third of their legislature party and had decided to merge with another party, they would enjoy the protection granted under Para 4 of the Tenth Schedule by invoking the “deeming fiction” contained in para 4(2).