Addressing a press conference, Rajasthan assembly speaker C.P. Joshi said he will approach the Supreme Court against Tuesday's Rajasthan High Court order putting on hold the disqualification notices against the rebel Congress MLAs in Rajasthan. The speaker said the country was heading towards a constitutional crisis. "The speaker post is a constitutional authority, with a well-defined role. Because of Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram [defections], there was a constitutional amendment for legislative disqualification vested with the speaker. Courts cannot intervene in the speaker's authority to do so. In every judgment, be it Uttarakhand or Manipur, it was well-defined that speaker has the authority to serve disqualification notices. Courts have the authority to undertake judicial reviews [of disqualification]. What we have served is only a show-cause notice. Unfortunately, there is an attempt to circumvent the judiciary in this case."
Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident Congress MLAs got another reprieve on Tuesday with the Rajasthan High Court putting off until Friday its order on their petitions against disqualification; the speaker also agreed to defer any action till then. The division bench completed the hearing of arguments and said it will pronounce its order on Friday, requesting the speaker too to extend his deadline for accepting the MLAs' replies to the notices.
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The notices had followed a Congress complaint that the 19 MLAs should be disqualified from the assembly for defying a party whip. The dissident MLAs, including Sachin Pilot, had challenged the disqualification notices, moving court last Friday. The division bench of Chief Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Prakash Gupta also heard the case on Monday and Tuesday.
The Congress had moved for action against Pilot and the other dissidents under paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. The provision disqualifies MLAs if they voluntarily gave up the membership of the party which they represented in the house. The party claimed that the dissident MLAs' actions leads to this inference. According to the Congress, the MLAs defied a whip in not attending the party's legislature party meetings held on Monday and Tuesday. However, the Pilot camp claimed they have never indicated any intention to leave the party, and claimed the whip to attend the legislature party meet was not official since it comes a time when the state legislature is not in session.
The dissident MLAs' petition had challenged the constitutional validity of the notices. In the writ petition, the MLAs said that they continue to owe allegiance to the Congress and are not seeking to defect to any other party. But, the petition made clear that they opposed the manner in which Gehlot functioned. They claimed that the speaker acted hastily in sending them the notices. "The undue haste and swiftness exhibited by the authority concerned in taking cognisance of the said complaint leaves no doubt in the minds of the petitioners that the move is aimed at arriving at a foregone conclusion leading to the disqualification of the petitioners," it added.
