Kolkata, July 17 (SocialNews.XYZ) The hearing on the petition filed by the "original but minority" faction in Trinamool Congress challenging the decision of the West Bengal Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose regarding the appointment of Ritabrata Banerjee, the leader of the "rebel but majority" faction in the party, as the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the House concluded on Friday at a division bench of the Calcutta High Court.
However, the division bench of Justice Sampa Sarkar and Justice Ajay Kumar Gupat had kept the judgement on reserve.
Sovandab Chattopadhyay, a veteran Trinamool Congress legislator and a prominent face of the "original but minority" faction led by the former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, first approached the Calcutta High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Krishna Rao challenging the Assembly Speaker's decision in the matter.
However, last month, Justice Rao's bench upheld the decision of Assembly Speaker Bose in the matter accepting expelled Trinamool legislator Ritabrata Banerjee as the leader of the new majority bloc of the Trinamool Congress in the House as well as the official Leader of Opposition.
Thereafter, Chattopadhyay approached the division bench of Justice Sarkar and Justice Gupta challenging the decision of the single-judge bench.
The hearing session in the matter concluded on Friday, with the division bench keeping the order on reserve.
On Friday, speaking on behalf of the Speaker, the Additional Advocate General of West Bengal, Billwadal Bhattacharyya said that since 58 of the 80 Trinamool Congress legislators submitted a resolution to the Office of the Speaker nominating Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of the Opposition, on the basis of that the majority, Speaker Bose appointed Ritabrata Banerjee as the official Leader of the Opposition.
In his counter argument, the petitioner's counsel and four-time Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member, Kalyan Banerjee, told the court that prior to the resolution submitted by the Ritabrata Banerjee-led faction, an official communication from Trinamool Congress was sent to the office of the Speaker nominating Sovandeb Chattopadhyay as the Leader of the Opposition, which the Speaker's office completely ignored.
"Then, without informing anyone, the Speaker took the decision in his chamber on June 3 to appoint Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of the Opposition. The Speaker appointed an Opposition leader keeping everyone in the dark. It is completely illegal to favour one person in this manner," Kalyan Banerjee said in his counter argument.
He also pleaded for a stay on the earlier single-judge bench order and also quashing the Speaker's decision in the matter.
Source: IANS
Gopi Adusumilli is a Programmer. He is the editor of SocialNews.XYZ and President of AGK Fire Inc.
He enjoys designing websites, developing mobile applications and publishing news articles on current events from various authenticated news sources.
When it comes to writing he likes to write about current world politics and Indian Movies. His future plans include developing SocialNews.XYZ into a News website that has no bias or judgment towards any.
He can be reached at gopi@socialnews.xyz
This website uses cookies.
