Himachal Congress turncoat MLAs withdraw plea from Supreme Court against disqualification

Six former Congress legislators, who have since joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Friday withdrew their plea before the Supreme Court which had challenged their disqualification from the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly [Chaitanya Sharma and ors vs Speaker Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly and ors]..The six politicians had been disqualified by the Speaker after they cross-voted for the BJP candidate during the recent Rajya Sabha elections, instead of the candidate belonging to the Congress party. Interestingly, the Speaker had said that cross-voting in Rajya Sabha polls would not attract the anti-defection law under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution since a Supreme Court judgment lays down that anti-defection law will not apply to elections for Rajya Sabha seats.Hence, the disqualification order by the Speaker was for failing to remain present in the House despite the issue of whip (a political party's official instruction to remain present or vote a certain way), and not for cross-voting.The 6 MLAs - Chaitanya Sharma, Davinder Kumar (Bhutto), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Rajinder Rana, Ravi Thakur and Sudhir Sharma - jointly moved the apex court against their February 29 removal from the legislative assembly by the Speaker.However, they sought to withdraw their plea last Friday. They had recently joined the BJP on March 23, days after the Supreme Court declined to stay the Speaker's decision on March 18. A Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta acceded to the rebel MLAs' request on Friday and dismissed their plea as withdrawn. .Earlier, while refusing to stay the Speaker's decision, the Court had sought the response of the office of the Himachal Pradesh speaker and the legislative assembly secretary in the matter.Senior Advocate Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi had appeared for the Himachal Pradesh Speaker. Notably, Singhvi was the Congress candidate for the polls and the cross-voting by the petitioner-MLAs had led to his loss..Ridiculous to expect Speaker to decide neutrally on disqualification for defection: Abhishek Manu Singhvi.The Speaker's decision to disqualify the petitioners had come on a petition moved by the State Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Harshwardhan Chauhan.Speaker Kuldeep Pathania disqualified the MLAs for having remained absent from the House despite the issuance of a whip by the party. The Speaker had opined that in voting on critical matters like budget, elected MLAs of a party cannot be permitted to hide behind procedural technicalities such as proof of service of the whip.Thus, the Speaker had ruled that the six MLAs incurred disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.