Supreme Court asks Bengal speaker to decide on disqualification plea against Roy

The bench was considering a petition filed by West Bengal assembly speaker Biman Banerjee against an order of the Calcutta high court on September 28, directing Banerjee to produce the decision taken on disqualification petition filed against Roy by BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari.

The Supreme Court on Monday lamented the “common practice” of assembly speakers inordinately sitting over disqualification petitions moved against sitting legislators, as it urged the West Bengal speaker to quickly decide whether Mukul Roy should be stripped off the membership of the House since he defected to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) after being elected as an MLA on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket.

Mukul Roy defected to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) after being elected as an MLA on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket. (PTI)

“The power was bestowed on the speaker in the Kihoto case (1992 judgment) so that they could decide the petitions under the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) independently. But the common experience is that it takes months and years for these petitions to be decided,” observed a bench of justices L Nageswara Rao and Hima Kohli.

The bench was considering a petition filed by West Bengal assembly speaker Biman Banerjee against an order of the Calcutta high court on September 28, directing Banerjee to produce the decision taken on disqualification petition filed against Roy by BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari. This order was passed on a plea moved by another BJP MLA, Ambika Roy, who wanted the high court to quash Roy’s nomination as the chairperson of the public accounts committee (PAC) by the speaker on July 9.

Appearing for Banerjee, senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued that no such directive could be issued to the speaker and that various findings recorded by the high court in its order regarding Roy’s conduct were completely unwarranted.

The bench, however, commented on the most basic question – status of the disqualification petition filed against Roy by Adhikari on June 17.

“What has been happening with the disqualification petition? It takes years now to decide the petitions under the Tenth Schedule. There have been so many cases where there are delays by the speaker and when such cases come to this court, we are told that you cannot pass any order till the speaker decides. This has been the common experience,” rued the court.

Singhvi, on his part, tried to convince the bench that the speaker was not causing any inordinate delay and that Adhikari has sought adjournments in the disqualification proceeding in July and August due to health reasons.

“But we are in November now. What happened between then and November? What is the status now? Has the speaker passed any order?” the bench asked the lawyer, who replied that the speaker has not decided yet, but a court cannot “micromanage the speaker’s calendar”.

The bench remained unmoved by Singhvi’s response. “Should we ignore para 80 of the high court completely when it says the issues (decision on disqualification petition and appointment as PAC chairman) are correlated? And if we were to micromanage the speaker’s calendar, we would have passed the order by now. We have only been trying to elicit answers from you,” it retorted.

The court added: “Let the speaker continue and decide under Tenth Schedule and then we will see...You (speaker) take a decision on your own without getting influenced by the observations of the high court. We need not say anything in our order but you finish the proceedings.”

Singhvi further contended that Roy’s petition before the high court had not even pressed for a decision on the disqualification petition but was only asking for setting aside his appointment as the PAC chairperson.

“Yes, we have seen it. In spite of which we want this direction by the high court to be implemented. We want the speaker to pass an order under the Tenth Schedule,” the bench replied.

At this, senior lawyer Shekhar Naphade, representing BJP MLA Ambika Roy, complained that the entire attempt by the speaker is to delay the matter so that Roy’s appointment as the PAC chairman for one year gets over.

The court, however, replied that it will hear the case in details on some other day, and in the meantime, it is making sure the disqualification petition is decided. “We want to ensure the order is passed. That’s why we are holding on to this matter,” it remarked.

The court, in its order, recorded that the disqualification proceedings before the speaker is listed next on December 21. “We hope the speaker will proceed with the matter on December 21 and will decide the same in accordance with law,” stated the order, listing the petition in the third week of January.

Roy, who joined the BJP in 2017, returned to the TMC on June 11. He, however, did not resign from the BJP. On June 18, Adhikari petitioned the speaker to seek Roy’s disqualification. On July 9, the speaker appointed him as chairman of the PAC, a post that has, by convention, always gone to an opposition party legislator.

In a 69-page strongly-worded order on September 28, the high court faulted the speaker for appointing Roy to this position without taking a call on the petition for his disqualification, asserting that the two were connected.

The high court had rejected the argument that it did not have jurisdiction over actions of the speaker, underlining that the court would have been debarred from entertaining the petition if it was a case of “procedural irregularities”. But “it is a case of blatant illegality,” held the high court, adding the speaker apparently “worked on dictates”, “was caught in the web knitted by him”, and failed to “discharge his constitutional duty coupled with established admitted constitutional conventions”.

The high court had fixed the matter on October 7 awaiting the speaker’s decision, but the speaker moved the Supreme Court and sought an adjournment in the high court.

In a 2020 decision in a case relating to disqualification of some MLAs in Manipur, the top court held that disqualification petitions under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution should be decided within a reasonable timeframe, and preferably within three months.

In this path-breaking ruling, the apex court had also said that Parliament should rethink whether the speaker of a House should continue to have powers to disqualify lawmakers as such a functionary “belongs to a particular political party”, adding an independent tribunal could do the job in a more effective way.

In Kihoto Hollohan case (1992), the Supreme Court held that “judicial review cannot be available at a stage prior to the making of a decision by the speaker”, nor would interference be permissible at an interlocutory stage of the proceedings.