Six disqualified Congress MLAs on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court challenging their disqualification ordered by Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania. The MLAs asserted that the Speaker’s order is illegal and unconstitutional. They were disqualified by the Speaker due to their absence during the budget in the Assembly.
The six rebel MLAs earlier moved the Himachal Pradesh High Court challenging their disqualification from the State Assembly. Himachal Pradesh Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania disqualified the rebel MLAs who had cross-voted in the recent Rajya Sabha election for the only seat in the state. Furthermore, they had also abstained from voting on Budget in the assembly, defying a party whip to vote for the government on the Finance Bill.
However, the Congress led government managed to pass the budget and the Finance bill was passed by voice vote following the suspension of 15 BJP MLAs by Pathania. The disqualified Congress MLAs are Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur and Chetanya Sharma.
The Six Congress MLAs submitted that the mandatory seven days time for replying to a notice was not given to them. The matter would be taken up for hearing by the Supreme Court within a week.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harswardhan filed the petition before the Speaker seeking disqualification of the six MLAs under the anti-defection law. After the disqualification, the strength of the House has gone down from 68 to 62, while the number of Congress MLAs has shrunk from 40 to 34.
Notably, for the first time ever in Himachal Pradesh’s history that any Member of Legislative Assembly(MLA) has been disqualified under the anti-defection law aimed at checking defections. The MLAs, who had voted for BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha election were not present in the House during voting on the Budget.