Rajasthan Crisis: Speaker Moves Supreme Court Over High Court Breather to Sachin Pilot

On Tuesday, Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident Congress MLAs got another reprieve with the Rajasthan High Court putting off its order on their petitions for three days. The Speaker also agreed to defer any action till then.

New Delhi: Rajasthan Speaker CP Joshi has filed a petition in the Supreme Court on Wednesday over the High Court direction to defer action on the disqualification notices that the Speaker served on Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident Congress MLAs.

On Tuesday, Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident Congress MLAs got another reprieve with the Rajasthan High Court putting off its order on their petitions for three days. The Speaker also agreed to defer any action till then.

The division bench completed the hearing of arguments and said it will pronounce its order on Friday, requesting the Speaker too to extend his deadline for accepting the MLAs replies to the notices. The notices had followed a Congress complaint that the 19 MLAs should be disqualified from the assembly for defying a party whip.

Meanwhile, Sachin Pilot has reportedly served Congress MLA Giriraj Singh Malinga with a legal notice for alleging that Pilot had offered him money to join the BJP.

The dissident MLAs have challenged the disqualification notices from the Speaker, moving court last Friday. The division bench of Chief Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Prakash Gupta also heard the case on Monday and Tuesday.

Both sides concluded their arguments on Tuesday and all parties were asked to file written submissions by next Friday.

“The court will now pass appropriate orders on July 24. The Speaker was also requested to defer action on the notices till Friday,” the counsel for the Speaker told reporters.

Speaker C P Joshi has twice before deferred his deadline for action on the notices as the court proceedings continued beyond the expected time.

The last time, on Friday, the MLAs were asked to give their replies by 5.30 pm on Tuesday evening, a deadline which has again been extended.

The Speaker’s counsel indicated to reporters that this was being done in the spirit of mutual respect between the two institutions.

The ruling party in Rajasthan had complained to the Speaker that the MLAs had defied a whip to attend two Congress Legislature Party meetings, on Monday and Tuesday last week.

The Pilot camp, however, argued that a party whip applies only when the Assembly is in session.

The dissidents also argued that they had no plans to quit the party and only wanted a change in its Rajasthan leadership.

(With Agency Inputs)