The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved judgement in petitions challenging the one-year suspension of 12 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs for their alleged ‘misbehaviour’ with the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker.
A Bench, headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar, and also comprising Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice CT Ravikumar, observed that suspension of an MLA for one year was worse than expulsion, as they could neither seek re-election, nor represent their constituency in the Assembly.
Senior Advocate Aryama Sundaram, representing the State of Maharashtra, argued that the act of suspending a member from the Assembly for one year was not barred by the Constitution. He referred to Article 190(4), which said that the seat would only be considered vacant, if the member was absent from 60 meetings of the House, not calendar days.
He further argued that the Court must only interfere in the business of the House on account of gross illegality.
He submitted that the scope of judicial review varied, depending on the subject. However, the one place where the judiciary “does not tread” due to a separation of powers, was the working of the House.
Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for one of the MLAs, referred to the Privy Council judgment in the Australian case of Taylor vs Barton. He insisted that the duration of any disciplinary action could only extend to the end of the session.
“On prorogation, all bills lapse, so all disciplinary actions also lapse…The longer you extend the sentence, the closer you go to perversity,” he submitted.
Appearing for another of the suspended MLAs, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi argued that the one-year suspension lacked rationality.
“Democracy is the basic structure. No doubt you [the House] set the rules, you’re the master of your House, but you don’t have to do it in split second. This is illegal, unviable and arbitrary. It can be immediately struck down for being manifestly arbitrary, like in the case of Shreya Singhal,” he submitted.
After hearing the arguments, the Court gave one-week time to the concerned Counsels to file written notices and reserved its order in the matter.
The suspended MLAs included Ashish Shelar, Dr Sanjay Kute, Abhimanyu Pawar, Girish Mahajan, Atul Bhatkhalkar, Harish Pimple, Jaikumar Rawal, Yogesh Sagar, Narayan Kuche, Bunty Bhangdiya, Parag Alwani and Ram Satpute. They were suspended from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for allegedly abusing and manhandling Speaker Bhaskar Jadhav in his chamber on the first day of Monsoon session.
The petitioner MLAs had challenged their suspension claiming violation of Article 14 and principles of natural justice. They claimed to have tendered an apology to the Speaker, while categorically denying the use of foul language and accusations of manhandling. They had sought CCTV footage of the incident in question, but were refused by the Deputy Speaker, citing House rules.
Along with Jethmalani and Rohatgi, Senior Advocates Harish Salve, NK Kaul and Siddharth Bhatnagar represented the petitioner MLAs along with Advocates-on-Record Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Abhikalp Pratap Singh and Utsav Trivedi.