High court of Bombay at Goa rejects MGP plea on Congress MLAs resignation, imposes fine

PANAJI: Expressing displeasure over the filing of a disqualification plea against two resigned Congress MLAs by the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) for “achieving political objectives”, the high court of Bombay at Goa on Monday imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh against it. Upholding the right of the legislator to resign, the court noted that the lawmaker is servant but not the slave of the people.

While holding that resignation by Shiroda MLA Subhash Shirodkar and Mandrem MLA Dayanand Sopte cannot be construed as defection, a division bench of justice R M Borde and justice Prithviraj K Chavan observed that when the speaker is satisfied with the resignation, it “need not be a matter of scrutiny at the instance of the petitioners who have different political agenda of their own”. It was for the speaker to judge the situation and his decision cannot be said to be perverse or unreasonable, the bench added.

The petition was filed by MGP, the BJP’s coalition partner, and its office bearer seeking setting aside of the decision of speaker Pramod Sawant to accept the resignation of the MLAs. The petitioners said that the speaker’s decision was violative of anti-defection law. The petitioners claimed that the speaker accepted the resignation faxed to him by the members without securing their presence to inquire into genuineness and voluntary nature of the resignations. The MGP alleged that the BJP had lured them to defect from Congress.

While noting that there is absolutely no material to substantiate the contention that the MLAs were lured to resign, the high court observed, “Once a candidate is elected, ordinarily he is expected to function as a member of the legislative assembly for the requisite term. There is nothing in the Constitution which takes away the right of an elected member to resign from his seat. Denial of such a right to an elected member would be destructive of principles of democracy. A legislator is the servant, but not the slave of the people.”

The court noted, “It is true that frequent resignations and frequent byelections are a drain on the finances of the state and may prove irksome. But that is no reason to compel an elected member who has no desire to continue his membership, to continue as such. A person, after getting elected, may, for variety of reasons, desire not to continue as a Member. His reasons may be good or bad, but that is his decision and his right.”

The court also opined that MGP’s petition is “in a way abuse of the process of the court”.

“We must place on record our displeasure for filing petitions by political parties with a view to achieve their political objectives and usurping the precious time of the Court which, otherwise, can be utilised for disposal of the matters brought before the Court by needy and poor,” the court remarked.

Sopte and Shirodkar resigned from Congress in October this year and subsequently joined the BJP. They have been appointed as heads of corporations by BJP.