Rajasthan political drama is back in the Supreme Court, hearing on Monday

The hearing on Monday is speaker CP Joshi’s second attempt to get the state high court’s stay order cancelled.

Three judges of the Supreme Court will hear Rajasthan speaker CP Joshi’s appeal against the high court order staying the disqualification proceedings against 19 Congress lawmakers led by Sachin Pilot at 11 am on Monday, according to the top court’s case list released on Saturday evening.

The Speaker had moved the top court complaining that the state court had no jurisdiction to ask him to defer the disqualification proceedings. (Photo @drcpjoshi)

The legal battle is a crucial sideshow in the continuing political battle between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot who has rebelled against him. Pilot and 18 lawmakers from his camp are challenging notices issued to them by speaker CP Joshi on complaints from the Congress that wants the 19 MLAs disqualified from the assembly under the anti-defection law for their rebellion. Pilot had moved the high court against the notice, which stayed the speaker’s proceedings.

The hearing on Monday is speaker CP Joshi’s second attempt to get the high court’s stay order cancelled.

The Speaker had moved the top court complaining that the state court had no jurisdiction to ask him to defer the disqualification proceedings. In his petition, Joshi called the court order “illegal, perverse, and in derogation of the powers of the Speaker.

In its 1992 judgment in the Kihoto Hollohan case, the top court had held that judicial review should not cover any stage prior to the making of a decision by the speaker/chairman. No interference would be permissible at an interlocutory stage of the proceedings, the court had said. In the present case, the top court is proposing to re-examine this legal principle.

The top court had this week refused to accept CP Joshi’s initial request to cancel the high court’s stay order, pointing that the two high court judges had already reserved their order to be pronounced on Friday.

“As the high court has already heard the matter after prolonged arguments and reserved the order, we are not staying the passing of the order [by the high court]. However, whatever order is passed shall be ultimately subject to the outcome of this petition,” a three-judge Supreme Court bench led by justice Arun Mishra had said.

The high court, however, didn’t deliver its ruling on the case. On Friday, it formally admitted Sachin Pilot’s petition against the disqualification notices, accepting the request to make the central government a party in the case and identified the legal points that it will take up during the hearings.

As the Congress sees it, the high court’s Friday’s ruling implied that the two high court judges may not rule on Pilot’s application in a hurry.

The Speaker has argued that it is the apex court’s duty to ensure that all constitutional authorities act within the “Lakshman rekha” drawn for each one of them.

During the hearing this week, the top court said the larger question here is whether a legislator’s voice can be shut down with the threat of disqualification. Can expressing dissent invite disqualification under anti-defection proceedings, the court observed.

“Can a person elected by people not express his dissent? Voice of dissent cannot be suppressed. In a democracy, can somebody be shut down like this?” the court asked.

Sachin Pilot, too, has moved a caveat in the Supreme Court to ensure that no orders are passed on Joshi’s petition without hearing him and his supporting MLAs. A caveat is a notice seeking that certain actions may not be taken without informing the person who gave the notice.

The disqualification notices were issued on the request of Rajasthan chief whip who said that the dissident MLAs did not attend the party’s CLP meetings. Pilot and other dissidents, meanwhile, argued that a whip cannot be issued when the assembly is not in session. Also, the disqualification notices were a violation of the freedom of speech right, they argued.

Already, the Gehlot government is struggling to get governor Kalraj Mishra to convene the assembly so that he can prove his majority in the assembly. But the governor is reluctant, wondering why Gehlot was in such a hurry to face the trust vote when no one was asking him to.