BJD moves HC over Speaker’s rejection of disqualification plea

Bhubaneswar: The Opposition BJD has moved the Orissa High Court challenging Assembly Speaker Surama Padhy’s decision to dismiss a petition seeking disqualification of eight party MLAs who allegedly defied the party whip during the Rajya Sabha elections held in March, party officials said on Friday.

The BJD’s chief whip and senior MLA Pramila Mallik said she filed a writ petition in the High Court on Thursday, challenging the Speaker’s decision, which was taken “unilaterally” without giving the regional party an opportunity of being heard. “The Speaker dismissed our petition without giving us a hearing. The party had submitted a petition before the Speaker seeking disqualification of eight MLAs who defied the party whip during the Rajya Sabha elections. We have prayed the High Court to order disqualification of the eight MLAs for their anti-party activities and for defying the collective decision of the party,” Mallik told reporters.

The BJD MLA and former minister Arun Kumar Sahoo said the party was aware that there was no provision for a whip in Rajya Sabha elections and that members were free to vote according to their conscience. He, however, said the party had accused the eight MLAs of defying the party whip and not attending urgent meetings held ahead of the elections.

Earlier in June, Speaker Padhy had dismissed separate petitions filed by the BJD and Congress seeking disqualification of 11 MLAs -- eight from the BJD and three from the Congress --following the Rajya Sabha elections.

In its petition, the BJD had alleged that the eight legislators -- Chakramani Kanhar of Baliguda, Devi Ranjan Tripathy of Banki, Arvind Mohapatra of Patkura, Sanatan Mahakud of Champua, Subasini Jena of Basta, Naba Kishore Mallick of Jaydev and Souvic Biswal of Cuttack-Chowdwar -- had violated the anti-defection provisions under the Constitution’s Tenth Schedule by acting against the party’s official stand.

The BJD also alleged that the legislators violated the party whip and defied official directives during the polls, terming their actions as anti-party activities warranting disqualification under the anti-defection law.

However, referring to the BJD petitions, the Assembly secretariat, in a June 19 notification, said, “The petition is cryptic, vague, unsubstantiated and does not fulfil the statutory requirements to be gone into on merits, even assuming for the sake of argument, but not admitting, that the contents are otherwise worthy of being enquired into.”

“Therefore, the petition suffers from gross infirmity or defects have been presented in sheer ignorance of the statutory requirements and do not deserve any consideration,” the order stated.

“These (petitions) failed to comply with mandatory requirements under the Members of Odisha Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on Ground of Defection) Rules, 1987,” the official notification said, adding that the petitions were not verified in the manner prescribed under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

The Congress had also filed a petition seeking disqualification of its MLAs Sofia Firdous of Barabati-Cuttack, Ramesh Jena of Sanakhemundi and Dasarath Gamang of Mohana. The 11 MLAs were accused of cross-voting during the election to four Rajya Sabha seats from Odisha on March 16. The BJD, in an understanding with the Congress and CPI(M), had fielded renowned urologist Dr Datteswar Hota as a joint candidate for one of the seats. He lost the election to BJP-backed independent candidate and former Union minister Dilip Ray, allegedly due to cross-voting by the 11 opposition MLAs.

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