Newmai News Network
Imphal | January 25
The recent order passed by Supreme Court related with disqualification petition of Manipur Forest minister Th Shyamkumar was on Saturday submitted to the tribunal of the Speaker of Manipur Legislative Assembly in Imphal.
On January 21, a three-member bench of Supreme Court had directed the Speaker of Manipur Legislative Assembly (MLA) to decide on the disqualification the Forest minister within four weeks pronouncing its verdict on petitions by two Congress MLAs to the Apex court.
Senior advocate of Supreme Court SG Hasnain submitted the order of the Apex court to the tribunal of the Speaker at MLA secretariat this afternoon.
Talking to reporters after submitting a copy of the Supreme Court, the senior advocate said that as per the order of the court, the Speaker of the state Assembly is bound to take a final decision to the disqualification case within four weeks. If the Speaker fails to take up any action, the Supreme Court will take the final decision of the case, he said.
Hasnain claimed that the order of the Apex court also mentioned about the Speaker disposing all the disqualification in his tribunal within the same stipulated four weeks' period.
He further said that not only the pending MLA disqualification cases in the state, the order of the Supreme Court will also cover all the similar pending cases in other states too.
He termed the verdict as a historical judgment. “The Speaker of the state Assembly cannot sit silent now. He is bound to follow the order of the honourable Supreme Court and take a decision within four weeks,” he added.
Mention may be made that the three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice R F Nariman while announcing the verdict also asked the Parliament to ponder over the power of the Speaker in deciding petitions seeking disqualification of lawmakers, observing that he also belongs to a political party.
The suggestion for devising an independent mechanism to deal with disqualification pleas against lawmakers came in a judgment by which the top court asked the Manipur Assembly Speaker to decide within four weeks, the plea of a Congress leader seeking disqualification of BJP lawmaker and Manipur Forest minister.
On failure to comply with the directive of the Supreme Court by the Speaker, the court will take a decision regarding the disqualification of Shyamkumar.
Shyamkumar was elected on Congress ticket but defected to BJP in the run up to government formation after the assembly elections in 2017.
Following the development, the Congress MLAs petitioned the tribunal of Speaker to disqualify him from being a member of the state Assembly under 10th Schedule of Indian Constitution, popularly known as Anti-Defection Law.
