By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Wednesday decided to hear next Monday the pleas of two Goa legislators challenging their disqualification by the assembly speaker, apparently to save the Congress-led coalition government in the state.
A bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan fixed the hearing after counsel for the two Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) legislators – brothers Pandurang and Ramkishan Dhavalikar – claimed the speaker's action was "illegal and unconstitutional."
The Dhavalikar brothers in their petition said they were disqualified "suddenly and abruptly" by Speaker Pratapsingh Rane minutes before they were to cast their votes against Chief Minister Digambar Kamat in a no-confidence motion against him July 30.
They said that Rane's decision to disqualify them was aimed solely at tilting the vote in favour of Kamat.
They said the speaker disqualified them on a petition by a fellow legislator, Angel Fernandes, without even formally informing them of any petition pending against them or giving them a copy of it.
The two MLAs complained that the decision to disqualify them was taken at a time when a no-confidence motion against both the speaker and the deputy speaker of the assembly, moved by their party, was pending in the house.
In the June 2007 assembly elections, the Congress party had won 16 seats with its pre-poll ally, the Nationalist Congress Party, bagging three in the 40-member house. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got 14 seats and independents and others allied to had four.
The MGP, to which the Dhavalikar brothers belong, won two seats.
With the MGP and one independent member initially supporting the Congress-led coalition, Kamat of the Congress was sworn in as chief minister June 8 with the support of 22 MLAs.
But within weeks of government formation, the Dhavalikar brothers decided to switch camps to the BJP-led Goa Democratic Alliance (GDA).
Meanwhile, a Congress MLA, Victoria Fernandes, quit her membership of the legislative assembly, leaving the Congress-led coalition with the precarious support of only 19 members in what was now a 39-member assembly.
Following these developments, Goa Governor S.C. Jamir asked Kamat to prove his majority in a floor test on July 30.
But the speaker disqualified the Dhavalikar brothers on the day of voting, tilting the balance in favour of Kamat.