By A Mirsab, TwoCircles.net,
Nagpur: In an embarrassment to Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), one of its Maharashtra MLA Sudheer Laxmanrao Parwe is facing disqualification after Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court issued notice to Election commission to submit its opinion on the question of his disqualification after he has been sentenced to two years rigorous punishment in 2005 criminal case.
Sudhir Parwe, a BJP legislator from Umred near Nagpur, was sentenced to two years in jail on April 24, 2015 by the judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) in Bhiwapur for assaulting a teacher in a zilla parishad school.
Parwe was then a ZP member. He was charge sheeted and subsequently convicted under Sections 332 (Voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from duty) and 353 (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the IPC. He was sentenced to two years each under both the sections and was ordered that sentences will run concurrently.
Parwe had secured bail on personal bond of Rs. 10,000 soon after conviction and was allowed to appeal against the conviction before sessions court.
As per the Supreme Court directives in 2013 elected representatives will have to lose their membership of Parliament or state assemblies immediately, under the Representation of the People Act, if they are convicted of an offence punishable with imprisonment of more than two years.
Therefore Parwe would have been disqualified by the state governor but as he was not disqualified until now, an activist Sanjay Meshram approached Bombay high court to direct Election commission to disqualify Parwe as an MLA from Umred constituency.
The double bench of High court on Thursday asked Bharati Dangre, a government pleader about the progress on the disqualification procedure undertaken by state Governor to which she replied that Governor has not received opinion sought from Election commission.
After this submission the court observed, “Since in view of the provisions of Article 192 of the Constitution of India, His Excellency, the Governor, is empowered to decide the question in respect of the disqualification of the Member of a House of Legislature of a State, after seeking the opinion of the Election Commission, we had asked the learned Government Pleader on the last date of hearing, to seek instructions about the progress in the matter of disqualification of the respondent no.3 in the proceedings initiated on the application of the petitioner.”
“…it would be necessary to consider within what time the Election Commission of India would submit its opinion on thequestion of disqualification of the respondent no.3”, the court exclaimed.
The court then issued notices to Governor, EC and other parties to the petition and directed EC to submit its opinion till September 16.