Supreme court issues notice to Maharashtra Assembly on BJP MLAs suspension

New Delhi, Dec 14: Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, and others, after hearing a batch of writ petitions filed by 12 BJP MLAs challenging the resolution passed by the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly to suspend them for one year for their alleged misbehaviour within the House in July 5, this year.

The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly has on July 5, this year had passed an unanimous resolution and suspend the 12 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) for one year for their alleged misbehaviour within the Assembly House.

A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court today, headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar, and also comprising Justice C T Ravikumar, issued notice to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, and others and asked it to return the notice on January, next year.
The Supreme Court also, while issuing notice, said that the pendency of the petition will not be a hindrance to the petitioners requesting the house to reduce their sentence.
Appearing for one of the MLAs, senior advocate and Former Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi submitted that there was complete violation of Rule 53 of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Rules, which deals with power to order withdrawal of members and the principles of natural justice.
Rohatgi said it was alleged that there was misbehaving in the house and that they also misbehaved in the chamber after the house was adjourned. “This resolution is against the law. Please mark the remainder of the days meeting. This 1 year suspension is completely uncalled for,” Rohatgi submitted to the Apex Court today, during the course of the hearing.

The Apex Court wanted to know from Rohatgi that why have you not approached the high court?
Rohatgi replied, I had filed it 6 months ago. it has been held that in matters of privileges in attending assembly, the SC has said that it is duty of this court that even if 226 remedy is available, this court will not shirk away its responsibility. so there is no absolute bar on jurisdiction.

“Its a gross violation of rules of parliamentary democracy. if a man coughs can he be asked to leave the house. there can be different parties but all of them come together in the house,?” Rohatgi questioned.

Senior lawyer for the State of Maharashtra, Shekhar Naphade, submitted that the same was not an action under Rule 53 of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Rules but was granted under Article 194(3) of the Constitution of India. “It was also his contention that this power was recognized under the common law system and England too,” he said.

He further contended that what was to be looked into was if the legislative decision was correct or not and if it was the petitioner’s contention that there was any procedural irregularity, then Article 212 of the Constitution of India would apply.

Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul appearing for one of the petitioners submitted that there was a breach of Rule 53 of the Maharashtra Legislative Rules. “No notice had been given,” he said.
“No notice, nothing was given in a year. If this kind of inaction is allowed it would be destructive of parliamentary democracy,” he said. Senior lawyer Siddharth Bhatnagar appearing for another MLA, submitted that the Legislative Assembly did not follow Rule 53 and that the resolution of suspension was completely illegal.

The Supreme Court was hearing the batch of pleas filed by 12 BJP MLAs led by Ashish Shelar challenging the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly’s resolution of suspending them for a period of 1 year.