Goa Legislative Assembly Speaker To Pass Orders Related To Disqualification Of 10 Former Congress MLA’s on April 20, 2021

The Goa Legislative Assembly after being nudged by the Supreme Court Bench comprising Hon’ble Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justice AS Bopanna & Justice V Ramasubramanian would pass the order related to disqualification of 10 Former Congress MLA’s who Merged With BJP on April 20,2021.

“The Bench cannot accept such a long delay. Ask the Ld Speaker to decide in a week”, CJI directed SGI appearing for the Speaker, Goa Legislative Assembly.

Sr Adv Kapil Sibal appearing for the petitioner informed the Bench that the matter was pending since 2019.

“There is a mockery of the whole procedure. While referring to the order dated February 10,2021, on 26 th February, 2021 the matter has been reserved for judgement & ever since the judgement has not been passed.”, Sibal argued.

The Supreme Court in the present matter was hearing a plea filed by Congress leader Girish Chodankar with the prayer to restrain the 10 MLA’s claiming to constitute two third of Congress Party in the Assembly in July 2019 decided to merge the said legislature party with BJP from participating in Assembly proceedings during pendency of the disqualification petition. The plea also sought for issuance of directions to restrain three MLA’s Chandrakant Kavalekar, Jennifer Monserrate & Filipe Rodrigues from functioning as ministers in Goa during the pendency of disqualification petition.

Ld SGI Tushar Mehta on February 10, 2021 informed the Bench that the speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly had listed the disqualification petition(s) for disposal on February 26,2021.

Vide order dated July 24, 2020, the Bench granted the respondents two weeks time to file their reply.

The Bench comprising Chief Justice, Justice AS Bopanna & Justice MR Shah on June 16,2020 issued notice to the respondents.

The matter will now be heard on April 22,2021.

Case Title: Girish Chodankar v. Speaker, Goa Legislative Assembly| WP(C) 525/2020