From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday ignored a plea to stay the Rajya Sabha election results, in view of a pending case of defection of all six Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to the ruling Congress after the last Assembly elections.
A vacation bench of Justices M R Shah and Aniruddha Bose said it cannot hear the case unless it is assigned to them by the Chief Justice of India. “We enquired from the Registry. The files were placed before CJI. There has been no communication from there.”
The appeal has been filed againss an order of the Rajasthan High Court on Thursday, dismissing a plea to stay declaration of the Rajya Sabha election results, underway now, and keep the votes cast by the six MLAs separately in a sealed cover.
The petitions filed by the BSP and BJP MLA Madan Dilawar are pending before the top court. They seek disqualification of the six MLAs. The defectors’ claim is that the entire BSP Legislature Party in the Assembly has merged into the Congress and so the disqualification under the anti-defection law does not arise. Also pending before the Rajasthan High Court is a petition challenging the Assembly Speaker declaring all six as the Congress MLAs on September 18, 2019.
The appeal filed in the top court by advocate Hemant Nahta reads: “Six MLAs of BSP, if allowed to participate and their votes are considered in the upcoming voting process as MLAs of the Indian Nation Congress for biennial election of 2022 for the Council of States from Rajasthan, scheduled on June 10, 2022, the whole democratic process would be devalued and the perpetrators of illegality would be able to enjoy the fruits of their wrong.”
