BJP MLA Girish Mahajan moves Supreme Court against amendment of MLA Rules concerning Speaker

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BJP MLA Girish Dattatraya Mahajan has moved Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court order dismissing the Public Interest Litigation filed against the amendment of Rules 6 and 7 of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Rule, 1960 concerning the election of Speaker and Deputy Speaker.

The plea filed through Advocate Siddharth Dharmadhikari and Advocate Abhikalp Pratap Singh has stated that the MLA Rules are procedure established by law and cannot be derogated by the Assembly and such rules can only be amended as per the procedure established under the rules i.e. Rules 224 and 225 as applicable in the Maharashtra Assembly.

On Monday, the plea was mentioned before a bench of Justice UU Lalit, however, Justice Lalit has asked the petitioner to mention the matter before the Chief Justice of India.

The plea has alleged that the Impugned Notification has been wrongly issued exercising powers under Rule 225 (3) of the MLA Rules which envisages a situation that there were no objections received by the committee to the proposed amendments.

In addition to this, the plea also added that "the same is erroneous as it is a matter of fact that 47 objections/suggestions were received by the committee. However, the same were completely made redundant and ignored by the committee."

The plea has further stated that "It is submitted that once any objection/suggestions are received the procedure to be followed for the amendment to be passed has been envisaged under 225 (2) of the MLA Rules 1960. However, instead of following the procedure under Rule 225 (2) and passing the amendment under the said rule, the respondents have mischievously exercised their powers under Rule 225(3) to issue the impugned notification."

Case Title: Girish Dattatraya Mahajan Vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors.