Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: The High Court Of Bombay At Goa today has issued notices to respondent Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly and G8 MLAs.
The notices were issued in petition filed by Dominic Noronha challenging order of the Speaker dismissing his petition to disqualify G8 MLAs. The further hearing has been adjourned for April 2.
In his petition, Noronha has requested that the Speaker’s order, dated October 14, 2022, be quashed and set aside, claiming that the eight MLAs—namely, Digambar Kamat, Aleixo Sequeira, Sankalp Amonkar, Michael Lobo, Delilah Lobo, Kedar Naik, Rudolfo Fernandes and Rajesh Faldessai — had incurred disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India and had thereby ceased to be members of the Goa Legislative Assembly, effective from September 14, 2022.
Noronha had argued that the Speaker’s finding that the respondents have not incurred disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution is arbitrary, unreasonable, contrary to law and unconstitutional, as it was based on a complete misreading, misconstruction and misinterpretation of Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
The Speaker, according to Noronha, misconstrued and misinterpreted the provisions of Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule in concluding that if the twin requirements of a merger of the political party and of the legislature party were mandatory, then sub-paragraph 2 of Paragraph 4 would be rendered redundant.
Noronha asserted that the Speaker should have ruled that the deeming fiction under sub-paragraph 2 of Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule applies only when there is a merger of the political party, followed by two-thirds of the legislature party members agreeing to such a merger.
