Congress’s Goa unit moves SC against its registry for not listing plea against Speaker
Girish Chodankar, Congress president in Goa said the party has continuously followed up with the Registrar of the listing branch no less than dozen times to check on the listing status and that the petition was allotted a tentative date on 17 occasions and despite its urgency, was not being listed.
The president of the Congress unit in Goa has moved the Supreme Court against the court’s Registry for failing to list the petition seeking directions to the Goa assembly Speaker to expeditiously hear the disqualification pleas the party has filed against its 10 former MLAs who defected to the BJP.
The plea, which was last heard on August 8, with a direction from the Chief Justice of India that it be listed after two weeks, is yet to make it to the final board despite the party having moved 13 requests seeking urgent listing and 18 times tentative dates to be allotted for the hearing of the case.
“The petition ought to have been listed on or around 26.08.2020. However, the matter has not been listed ever since 11.08.2020 till date in spite of the aforementioned order dated 11.08.2020. As of today, over three months have elapsed since the matter was last listed before this Hon’ble Court for hearing in spite of its explicit directions to put the same up after two weeks,” State Congress president Girish Chodankar said in his fresh petition on November 20 invoking the Supreme Court’s original direction.
“This Hon’ble Court while granting an adjournment on the last occasion explicitly passed the aforestated two weeks direction as it well appreciated the urgency inherent in matters which are in the nature of the captioned matter and is conscious of the fact that if not expeditiously disposed, then such matter will be rendered completely infructuous,” Chodankar said.
According to Chodankar, the party has continuously followed up with the Registrar of the listing branch no less than dozen times to check on the listing status and that the petition was allotted a tentative date on 17 occasions and despite its urgency, was not being listed.
The party fears that its petition may meet the same fate as that of a petition relating to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker who allegedly violated a three-month deadline in deciding the disqualification of 22 MLAs, who had ‘defected’ from the Congress to the BJP which was rendered infructuous. “The present matter may suffer the same fate if it is not listed urgently,” Chodankar said.
The Registry was not available for comment
The Congress leader had approached the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Goa assembly Speaker to decide the disqualification petition filed against the 10 MLAs within a period of one month, as the same has been pending since August 8, 2019 — over 15 months (13 months if one excludes the duration of the lockdown in the State of Goa actuated by the Covid–19 pandemic) — and to restrain the MLAs who they say have ex-facie incurred disqualification under the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution of India from functioning and acting as Ministers and Members of the Legislative Assembly.
