Supreme Court Sends Plea On Rebel TMC MLAs’ Disqualification To Calcutta High Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday turned away Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay’s plea for a direction to the West Bengal Assembly Speaker to decide pending disqualification petitions against rebel Trinamool Congress MLAs expeditiously and told him to approach the Calcutta High Court. A Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi disposed of the petition and asked the high court to hear it urgently.

The Bench ordered, "It seems to us that the petitioner has to take recourse to the Calcutta High Court. We accordingly dispose of this petition at this stage with liberty to the petitioner to file an appropriate petition before the high court. We request the Chief Justice of the High Court to list the matter before a Division Bench for urgent consideration and decide the matter expeditiously."

At the outset, the judges noted that the Speaker was supposed to decide the July 8 disqualification petitions within three months. Mr. Chattopadhyay’s counsel also said the Calcutta High Court was closed till November 11.

Disqualification Plea Delay

The counsel for Chattopadhyay said the July disqualification petitions against the rebel MLAs were still undecided. He made that submission after the court noted the three-month window for the Speaker’s decision.

Justice Bagchi responded, "We quite understand. You cannot litigate to jump the queue."

The counsel then asked the Bench to direct a Division Bench of the High Court to take up the case, so it would not end up in another round of intra-court appeals. "We request an expeditious disposal. There is already an order of this court concerning West Bengal," he submitted. Justice Bagchi replied, "We are aware of the situation. You cannot have all petitions coming here merely because we have passed an order in one".

Rebel MLAs Named

Ten MLAs were named. The disqualification petitions were lodged on July 8 this year against Ritabrata Banerjee, Firhad Hakim, Arup Roy, Sandipan Saha, Akhruzzaman Ansari, Shiuli Saha, Sabina Yasmin, Biplab Mitra, Javed Khan and Rathin Ghosh.

They were accused of defecting after contesting Assembly elections on Trinamool Congress tickets. The background was a split in the party after it lost elections to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Earlier Court Battle

The issue had also been litigated earlier. Chattopadhyay had earlier been nominated by the Mamata-led faction as its Leader of Opposition. The Assembly Speaker instead recognised rebel Trinamool MLA Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition, along with another rebel MLA as Chief Whip.

On June 18, the Calcutta High Court declined any interim order on West Bengal Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose’s decision to appoint breakaway Trinamool group MLA Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition. Mr. Chattopadhyay had moved the High Court challenging the rejection of his nomination and the Speaker’s appointment of Banerjee to the post.