The Supreme Court on Tuesday disposed the Special Leave Petition filed by the Jharkhand Assembly Speaker as the Jharkhand High Court is set to hear the matter tomorrow.
The bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian heard the special leave petition of Jharkhand Assembly Speaker challenging the Jharkhand HC order staying the disqualification notice issued by the Speaker to Babulal Mirandi for alleged defection.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for the petitioner has submitted that the writ petition is not maintainable against a Speaker’s notice. Later, the respondent submitted that the High Court is hearing the matter tomorrow. High Court requested to consider all issues including the objection to maintainability of the writ.
Three people including Babulal Marandi, Bandhu Tirkey and Pradeep Yadav were elected as Jharkhand Vikas Morcha MLAs in the Jharkhand Assembly elections in November 2019. After the election, Marandi merged his JVM faction with the BJP, while MLAs Bandhu Tirkey and Pradeep Yadav merged the same party with the Congress. Though the Election Commission has approved the merger of BJP with JVM, Jharkhand Speaker Ravindra Nath Mahato has not yet given the status of the Leader of Opposition to Marandi.
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The Speaker considered the merger of the party as a case of defection and therefore allotted a separate seat for Marandi from BJP MLAs in the assembly. On the other hand, the BJP said the person whom its MLAs have chosen as their leader, should get the status of Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly.