Speaker disqualifies six Congress MLAs for violating Anti Defection law as member of assembly

Six Congress MLAs who had defied the Congress party whip and remained absent during passing of Financial bills on Tuesday and Wednesday was disqualified by the Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania after attracting provision of anti defection law against them.

The Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathaina who acted as chairman of the Tribunal as laid  under 10 schedule of Indian constitution which define the Anti Defection law said that six MLAs who  defied the party whip twice have attractive the penal provisions of Antidefeciton law .

The respondent attracted the disqualification under para 2 of the ADL and therefore the respondent ceased to be a member of this August house. 

On Wednesday the Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania reserved the decision in the petition for disqualification moved by Congress Vidhayak Dal yesterday for defying the Congress legislators party whip twice during discussion on the finance or Money bills leading to short of quorum on Tuesday.

The MLAs involved are Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Inderdut Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma and Devinder Bhutto. It has been alleged that they violated the whip issued by the Congress party twice, due to which their membership  may be disqualified under the Anti defection law laid in the tenth schedule of the Indian Constitution.
The matter was filed before the house on Tuesday, as notices were served to the six concerned MLAs. The same were received by them after which the hearing was held on Wednesday from 4PM to around 6:30PM.” Senior Advocate Kamat represented the Congress legislative party and Senior advocate Satpal Jain represented the six MLAs. After hearing the arguments by senior counsels of both parties, the decision was reserved by the speaker, on Wedenesday.

Resultant cross voting Abhishek Manu Singhvi of Congress party lost the Rajya Sabha polls. Both contesting candidates got 34 votes each, and later the decision had to be taken through a draw of a slip, in which luck favoured BJP, which won.

The Anti defection law has been included in the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution in 1985 by the 52nd Amendment Act. It lays down the process by which legislators may be disqualified on grounds of defection by the Presiding Officer of a legislature based on a petition by any other member of the House. The law applies to both Parliament and state assembly.