By Sumit Saxena
New Delhi, March 12 (SocialNews.XYZ) Amid the political turmoil in Madhya Pradesh where 22 Congress MLAs have resigned threatening the stability of the Congress government, legal experts reckon the Speaker of the state Assembly, in the backdrop of the recent Supreme Court judgement, should immediately summon the MLAs to ascertain the reason for their resignation and decide on it as soon as possible.
On January 21, a three-judge bench headed by Justice R.F. Nariman held that the Speaker cannot sit on a disqualification indefinitely and emphasized it is essential for the Speaker to decide on the matter within a reasonable time period, and recommended the disqualification should be decided within the outer limit of three months.
Speaking to IANS, Constitutional expert and senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi said following this recent judgement by the apex court, the MP Assembly Speaker N.P. Prajapati should immediately summon the dissenting MLAs to ascertain the reason behind their resignation.
"The Speaker should immediately act in this scenario and decide on the resignation of the MLAs. There is a probability that the Speaker might not accept the resignation of the MLAs, as they did not meet the Speaker and sent the resignation over e-mail," added Dwivedi.
The Congress has already filed petitions before the Speaker seeking disqualification of the six ministers of Kamal Nath Cabinet as MLAs who, along with 16 MLAs, resigned on Tuesday. Dwivedi added that the Speaker should decide on these petitions immediately.
The six separate petitions against the ministers - Mahendra Singh Sisodiya, Imarti Devi, Tulsi Silawat, Prabhuram Chaudhary, Govind Singh Rajput and Praduman Singh Tomar - were submitted to the Speaker under Article 191(2) of the Constitution. According to this Article, a person shall be disqualified as Member of Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council, if he or she is disqualified under the Tenth Schedule.
Speaking to IANS, former Secretary General of Lok Sabha Subhash Kashyap said in the backdrop of the apex court judgement, "the bonafides of the resignation should be validated before the Speaker accepts it." Kashyap insisted hypothetically if the Speaker does not accept their resignation then the situation will remain unchanged. "Since the House is already in meeting then the opposition could move a no-confidence motion before the Speaker and then he decides on the matter."
Former Secretary General of Lok Sabha P.D.T Achary also reiterated that the Speaker should act immediately in this situation and reckoned the political situation unfolding in Madhya Pradesh seems like a mirror image of "what happened in Karnataka last year." Achary insisted that the Speaker could meet the MLAs and verify whether their resignation was voluntary or under some kind of pressure.
Speaker Prajapati had said MLAs would have to submit their resignation in person.
Achary insisted that as per the law, those resigning will have to first appear before the Speaker personally, after which he will examine the available evidence before deciding on their resignation as per the merits of the case.
(Sumit Saxena can be contacted at sumit.s@ians.in)
Source: IANS
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