In a significant ruling on Friday, the Supreme Court decided not to entertain the Congress party’s plea challenging the decision of the Goa Assembly Speaker, Ramesh Tawadkar, to reject a disqualification petition against eight MLAs who shifted allegiance to the BJP. The bench, led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar, directed Congress leader Girish Chodankar, the petitioner, to approach the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court for any further challenges.
The controversy stems from a bold move by eight MLAs, including Digambar Kamat, Aleixo Sequeira, Sankalp Amonkar, Michael Lobo, Delilah Lobo, Kedar Naik, Rudolf Fernandes, and Rajesh Faldesai, who defected from the Congress to the BJP. This political maneuver prompted Chodankar, the former Goa Congress chief, to file a disqualification petition, arguing that their defection breached the elected members’ allegiance to their original political party.
However, on November 1, Speaker Tawadkar dismissed the disqualification petition, citing legal provisions regarding party mergers. According to Tawadkar’s ruling, “upon the merger of the original political party of the elected member with another political party, the elected member will not face disqualification in either contingency, whether he chooses to go with the merger or disagrees with the same.” He further clarified that disqualification on grounds of defection does not apply in cases of party mergers, a point of contention that the Supreme Court has now chosen not to reconsider.
