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Patna HC to hear RJD MLA’s plea against Nitish Kumar’s new govt on Monday
The petitioners claimed the RJD, with 80 MLAs, was the single largest party in the assembly and should have been first called to form new government after Nitish Kumar resigned as chief minister.
The Patna high court on Friday said it would hear on Monday a petition challenging the formation of a new government by Nitish Kumar in Bihar.
Earlier, Jagannath Singh, counsel for petitioners—Saroj Yadav, RJD MLA from Barhara in Bhojpur district, and Chandan Verma—requested the court to hear the matter on an urgent basis.
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In their petition, Yadav and Verma claimed that the mandate in 2015 assembly elections was for Kumar-led Grand Alliance and against the BJP for five years. The formation of the new JD(U)-BJP government was “unconstitutional”, they claimed.
The petitioners also said that the RJD, with 80 MLAs, was the single largest party in the assembly and should have been first called to explore the possibility of forming new government after Kumar resigned as chief minister on Wednesday.
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Additional solicitor general SD Sanjay and principal additional advocate general Lalit Kishore said the petition was “frivolous”. The copy of the petition had been served only on the Union government and not on the Election Commission of India, governor’s office and the state government, as required, they said.
After hearing the arguments, the bench of chief justice Rajendra Menon and justice Anil Kumar Upadhyay ordered that the matter be listed for hearing on Monday.
