Disqualification plea: Supreme Court asks Goa speaker to reply in four weeks

PANAJI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed Goa assembly speaker Rajesh Patnekar' and 10 MLAs including deputy chief minister Chandrakant Kavalekar, who joined BJP from Congress last year, to reply within four weeks to a petition filed against them.
Congress state president Girish Chodankar had approached the Supreme Court pointing out the nearly nine-month delay by the speaker in deciding the disqualification petitions filed against the MLAs.
Chodankar in his plea had cited an order in the Manipur assembly case passed by the Supreme Court in March and sought a direction to restrain the MLAs from attending the assembly proceedings during the pendency of the disqualification petition.
Chodnakar stated that in the Manipur case, the SC directed the MLA concerned not to enter the legislative assembly, and that he would cease to be a minister due to the speaker’s delay in deciding the disqualification petition.
Chodankar also cited another apex court judgment which provided that disqualification pleas should be decided within three months. He said that this time limit has been breached in Goa.
“Importantly, during the pendency of the said petition, the respondents (MLAs) continue to participate as members of the legislative assembly, despite having ex-facie incurred a disqualification under Schedule X of the Constitution of India,” he said, adding that some of the MLAs are ministers in the state government.
Besides Kavlekar, the disqualification petition, filed before the speaker on August 8 last year, pertains to deputy speaker Isidore Fernandes, ministers Jennifer Monserrate and Filipe Neri Rodrigues, and MLAs Nilkanth Halarnkar, Antonio Fernandes, Franscisco Silveira, Wilfred D’Sa, Clafasio Dias and Atanasio Monserrate.
All 10 had resigned from Congress and joined BJP in July, taking the saffron party’s strength in the 40-member House to 27.
This is one of two petitions pending before the Goa assembly speaker. The other is against two former MGP legislators—tourism minister Manohar Ajgaonkar and PWD minister Deepak Pauskar—who joined BJP in March last year.