SC allows Rajasthan Speaker to withdraw appeal against HC order

The Supreme Court has allowed Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C.P. Joshi to withdraw his petition against the Rajasthan High Court’s order which postponed disqualification proceedings against former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot and 18 other rebel MLAs. Appearing for the Speaker, senior lawyer Kapil Sibal informed Justice Arun Mishra led bench that the Rajasthan High Court had passed a fresh order on 24 July, which had raised several other issues including interpretation of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution. In view of a detailed 32-page order by the High Court, Speaker is likely to weigh his legal options on what he will do next.

In his petition, the Speaker had said that the HC order “completely destroys the delicate balance envisaged by the Constitution between the Legislature and the Judiciary” and called the HC order “illegal, perverse, and in derogation of the powers of the Speaker”.

 On Friday, the Rajasthan High Court had ordered status quo to be maintained in the disqualification case against Sachin Pilot and 18 Congress rebel MLAs which means no action can be taken against the former Deputy CM and other rebel Congress leaders for now since the Speaker can’t act on disqualification notices issued on 14 July.

The High Court also agreed to Pilot camp MLA Prithviraj Meena’s request to include Centre as a party to the case, since the 10th Schedule’s constitutional validity was under challenge and no order could possibly be passed without hearing the Centre. The High Court had pointed out 13 questions which will have to be decided in the case now.

The Rajasthan HC was hearing a petition filed by Sachin Pilot and 18 Congress rebel MLAs against the disqualification notice issued by the Assembly Speaker to disqualify them as MLAs.

The petition stated: “None of the petitioners herein have either by express conduct or implied conduct, indicated to the members of their constituencies and/or the public at large of their intention to leave or voluntary give up the membership of Indian National Congress.”

The petition junked the allegations as baseless and said that petitioners had no intention to voluntarily give up membership of the Congress.