The Supreme Court has ordered notices to be served to 20 Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) MPs, who are former Trinamool Congress (TMC) members, offering a potential way forward for Mamata Banerjee's faction. The court granted the MPs two weeks to respond to a petition and emphasized the need for the Lok Sabha Speaker to expedite pending disqualification decisions, a move that TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee had sought. The 20 MPs have merged with NCPI and are supporting the NDA in Parliament while their disqualification remains undecided, a situation that has reduced the Mamata faction's strength in Parliament.

The Supreme Court has ordered notices to be served to 20 Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) MPs, who are former Trinamool Congress (TMC) members, offering a potential way forward for Mamata Banerjee's faction. The court granted the MPs two weeks to respond to a petition and emphasized the need for the Lok Sabha Speaker to expedite pending disqualification decisions, a move that TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee had sought. The 20 MPs have merged with NCPI and are supporting the NDA in Parliament while their disqualification remains undecided, a situation that has reduced the Mamata faction's strength in Parliament.

The Supreme Court has ordered notices to be served to 20 Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) MPs, who are former Trinamool Congress (TMC) members, offering a potential way forward for Mamata Banerjee's faction. The court granted the MPs two weeks to respond to a petition and emphasized the need for the Lok Sabha Speaker to expedite pending disqualification decisions, a move that TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee had sought. The 20 MPs have merged with NCPI and are supporting the NDA in Parliament while their disqualification remains undecided, a situation that has reduced the Mamata faction's strength in Parliament.

A way forward emerges for the Mamata Banerjee faction of Trinamool Congress (TMC) after the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that notices be served to 20 Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) MPs. The court has given two weeks to respond to the petition. Though Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana considered serving a notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta intervened for the notice not to be served.

Mehta instead said that he will appear on behalf of the Speaker, adding that he had instructions to say that the Speaker has issued notices on the disqualification petitions.

The court was hearing a plea filed a day earlier by TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee to direct the Lok Sabha Speaker to expedite the pending decision on MPs disqualification. "It is not a question of issuing notices, but of concluding the proceedings within a time frame," Justice Bagchi said.

TMC MP and lawyer Kalyan Banerjee, who appeared for Abhishek Banerjee, termed it a big victory. “There are many illegalities. The Supreme Court is also hearing the Shinde(Eknath) case,” said Kalyan Banerjee.

Kalyan argued that the delay in the decision harms democracy and that there should be a fixed deadline for the pending decision. The 20 former TMC MPs who merged with the NCPI supporting the NDA in Parliament are Kaloli Ghosh Dastidar, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Satabdi Roy, Prasun Banerjee, Rachna Banerjee, Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, Partha Bhowmick, Arup Chakraborty, Adhikari Deepak Dev, Sayani Ghosh, Bapi Haldar, Md Abu Taher Khan, Kalipada Saren Kherwal, Asit Kumar Mal, June Maliah, Mitali Bag, Khalilur Rahaman, Mala Roy, Sharmila Sarkar and Pathan Yusuf.

28 Lok Sabha MPs won on a TMC ticket, of which now only eight remain with the Mamata faction after TMC’s defeat in the West Bengal assembly elections in May this year.

The 20 NCPI MPs, meanwhile, have attended meetings called by the NDA even as the decision on their disqualification is pending with the Lok Sabha Speaker.  

Abhishek had met Om Birla on June 19 seeking disqualification and later on July 27 to call for expediting the process. The issue of revoking separate seating arrangements was also brought up during the meetings.

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