Supreme Court gives Oct 8 deadline to Bengal assembly speaker over TMC disqualification plea

The Supreme Court on Monday said that the West Bengal assembly speaker has time till October 8 to decide on the disqualification petitions filed against 10 Trinamool Congress legislators, observing that its 2020 decision requires the speaker to decide on such pleas within three months.

Noting that the disqualification pleas against the 10 MLAs led by Ritabrata Banerjee were filed on July 8, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said, “This court in Keisham Meghachandra Singh v Speaker, Manipur Legislative Assembly (2020) has held that in deciding disqualification petitions, the speaker acts as a tribunal and such power is to be exercised within a reasonable period.” That decision had laid down a period of three months for the Manipur speaker to decide the pending disqualification pleas.

Applying this decision to the facts of the present case, the bench, also comprising justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, noted that the disqualification petitions were filed on July 8 and the three-month period will expire on October 8.

The court held, “We have every reason to believe that the speaker is fully cognisant of the principles laid down by this court and shall make all endeavours to take an appropriate decision within the said time period.”

The order was passed on a petition filed by All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) legislator Sohandeb Chattopadhyay who moved the disqualification pleas under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution against the 10 rebel MLAs.

Besides Ritabrata Banerjee, the other rebel MLAs include Arup Roy, Firhad Hakim, Sandipan Saha, Akhuruzzaman Ansari, Shiuli Saha, Sabina Yasmin, Biplab Mitra, Javed Khan and Rathin Ghosh.

Chattopadhyay was represented by senior advocate Kapil SIbal who urged the court to keep the matter pending. He said that this issue is arising in many cases and there is need to synchronise the proceedings pending before the speaker with that of the Election Commission.

But the bench said, “There are so many proceedings where the judiciary is to comply with timelines for passing decisions which we are gloriously in breach of.” Chattopadhyay sought the court’s intervention to direct the speaker to decide the disqualification petitions expeditiously.

The court told Sibal that the 2020 decision takes care of the relief sought by the petitioner and disposed of the matter.

In the West Bengal elections this year, the BJP swept to power winning 208 seats to the TMC’s 80. After that, 58 legislators of the TMC, led by Ritabrata Banerjee, formed a separate faction. The Election Commission is currently in the process of deciding which is the real TMC and can claim the party’s symbol, two flowers with a clump of grass; in the meantime, the rebel faction has taken the name Democratic Trinamool Congress and been given the envelope symbol; the other one, led by Mamata Banerjee has taken the name Mamata All India Trinamool Congress, and been assigned the football player symbol. Apart from this, 20 of the erstwhile TMC’s 28 MPs have defected and joined the little-known Nationalist Citizen’s Party of India. Their disqualification petitions, moved by TMC, are before the Lok Sabha speaker and TMC (now Mamata All India Trinamool Congress) general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has moved a separate petition in the apex court seeking expeditious disposal of these.