The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to entertain a plea by a Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator seeking the speedy disqualification of 10 rebel MLAs in West Bengal, and directed the petitioner to approach the Calcutta High Court instead for an expeditious decision.
“In our view, the appropriate recourse for the petitioner is to approach the Calcutta high court. We leave it to the petitioner to approach the high court. You must understand our problem: if we entertain one state, all MLAs will start coming here. To avoid the rigmarole of first approaching a single judge and then a division bench, the court requested a division bench to take up the matter.
Because we have passed orders in one matter, we cannot have all petitions coming here just. Advocate Preetika Dwivedi, appearing for the petitioner, told the court that on Chattopadhyay’s petition, the top court had in September disposed of the matter while giving time till October 8 for the Speaker to decide the petitions filed under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India. Dwivedi said that the petitions were filed on July 8, and almost four months have passed, yet no decision has been taken. Dwivedi told the court that all that the petition seeks is implementation of the 2020 judgment. The counsel then pointed out that the high court is on vacation till November 11.
We request the chief justice of the Calcutta high court to list the matter before a division bench which shall decide the matter expeditiously,” a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and justice Joymalya Bagchi said. The court said, “We do not want litigants to jump the queue. The bench said, “Even the high court will follow our judgment. The bench said it was aware of the situation and requested the chief justice to urgently list the matter as and when it is filed. It was on September 28 that the top court had said, “We have no reason to believe that the Speaker is fully cognisant of the principles laid down by this court and shall make all endeavours to take an appropriate decision within the said time period (three months).”
Apart from this, 20 of the erstwhile TMC’s 28 MPs have defected and joined the little-known Nationalist Citizen’s Party of India.
Their disqualification petitions, moved by the TMC, are before the Lok Sabha Speaker, and TMC (now Mamata All India Trinamool Congress) general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has moved a separate petition in the apex court seeking expeditious disposal of these pleas.
