By IANS,
Chandigarh : A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Friday reserved its order on a petition filed by former chief minister Amarinder Singh, seeking a stay on the state legislative assembly’s decision to expel him from its membership.
Justices A.K. Goel and Ajay Tewari, constituting the bench, announced that they were reserving the order on the petition after hearing lawyers Friday.
The same bench Thursday refused to stay the Punjab assembly order expelling the senior Congress leader, saying it was not an urgent matter. The matter was postponed till Friday.
The matter came up for hearing before the bench after two other benches of the same high court refused to take up the matter in their courts citing propriety issues.
Amarinder Singh had sought a stay on his expulsion from the assembly.
The Punjab assembly Wednesday announced his expulsion after a house committee found him and others, including two ministers in his previous government, guilty of favouring a private builder for the allotment of a prime piece of land worth Rs.360 million in Amritsar city.
The former chief minister, who was elected February 2007 from the Patiala assembly seat, was expelled from the house for the remainder term of three and a half years.
Lawyers for the former chief minister argued that the expulsion was unlawful and biased and a stay was necessary to stop further action in the matter, including declaring the Patiala assembly seat vacant and seeking a fresh by-election for the seat.