Goemkaponn Desk
PANAJI: The Supreme Court of India (SC) will hear Congress and MGP disqualification petition on April 22.
The matter was fixed for April 21 but had to be pushed a day later as April 21 has been declared holiday for Ramnavi.
After being reprimanded by the Supreme Court, the Goa Speaker Rajesh Patnekar today submitted before Court to pass the order on a petition to disqualify 10 Congress and 2 MGP MLAs, on April 20.
The Court had declined to accept the Submission of the Speaker stating that April 29 date is not acceptable and it should be preponed.
Supreme Court directs Counsel representing Goa Speaker to seek instruction whether he can pass judgement on April 20.
Accordingly, the Speaker submitted to pass the order on April 20.
All the 12 MLAs had joined ruling BJP 2019. Of these, two are elevated as Deputy Chief Minister, One Deputy Speaker and three Ministers.
When the matter came up for final hearing before the Speaker, the petitioners contended that the MLAs have incurred disqualification in terms of para 2 of the Tenth Schedule to Constitution of India.
They maintained that the MLAs ceased to be members of the State Legislative Assembly.
On the other hand, the ten Congress MLAs contended that the Indian National Congress does not exist in Goa. The MLAs said that the five Congress legislators are part of the opposition bench in the House and are not Congress Legislative members.
