By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Monday issued notice to Goa assembly speaker Pratapsinh Rane on petitions by two state legislators challenging his decision to disqualify them minutes before voting on a trust motion for Chief Minister Digambar Kamat last week.
A bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan also issued notices to the chief minister and the state government on the petitions of the two MLAs – brothers Pandurang and Ramkishan Dhavalikar of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) – who also demanded an early floor test for the Kamat government. The ruling Congress-led government had been reduced to a minority after the two MGP MLAs withdrew support.
The bench, which included Justices Tarun Chatterjee and R.V. Raveendran, fixed Friday as the deadline for filing replies and counter-replies by the parties. The bench fixed Monday as the next date for hearing the petition.
The two MLAs had moved the court last Wednesday challenging their disqualification by the speaker allegedly to save the coalition government.
The bench issued the notices after hearing preliminary arguments by their counsel Mukul Rohtagi, who contended that the speaker’s action was “illegal and unconstitutional”.
Rohtagi said that the two Dhavalikar brothers were disqualified “suddenly and abruptly” by the speaker minutes before they were to cast their votes against the chief minister during a trust motion July 30.
He said Rane’s decision was aimed solely at tilting the vote in favour of Kamat.
The petitioners said the speaker disqualified them on a petition by a fellow legislator, Angel Fernandes, without even formally informing them about the petition or giving them a copy of it.
Rohtagi said the decision to disqualify the Dhavilkar brothers was taken at a time when a no-confidence motion against both the assembly speaker and deputy speaker, moved by their party, was pending in the house.
In the June 2007 assembly elections, the Congress had won 16 seats with poll ally Nationalist Congress Party bagging three in the 40-member house. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got 14 seats and independents and others allied to it had four.
The Dhavalikar brothers won the two MGP seats.
Kamat of the Congress became chief minister June 8 with the support of 22 MLAs, including the MGP and one independent.
But within weeks, the Dhavalikars 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 only 19 members in the now 39-member assembly.
Following these developments, Goa Governor S.C. Jamir asked Kamat to prove his majority in a floor test July 30. But the speaker disqualified the Dhavalikar brothers on the day of voting, tilting the balance in favour of Kamat.