Rajasthan Speaker to move Supreme Court; challenges HC intervention on notices to MLAs

Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi on Wednesday said he has the constitutional authority to send a show-cause notice to the MLAs and the court should not have intervened in the matter. He said that only the Speaker has the right to disqualify MLAs as in 1992, a constitution bench said that the court will not interfere in such actions.

'I have asked my counsel to file SLP in Supreme Court'

Joshi said that he would move to the Supreme Court with a Special Leave Petition (SLP) as the rightful action of authorities had been "circumvented, leading to a constitutional crisis."

"Speaker's responsibilities are well defined by the Supreme Court and the Constitution. As the Speaker, I got an application and to seek info on it, I issued a show-cause notice. If show cause notice will not be issued by the authority, then what is the work of authority," he said. Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal will appear before the Supreme Court for Rajasthan Speaker and the petition will be filed shortly.

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This comes after the Rajasthan High Court on Tuesday requested the Legislative Assembly Speaker to defer action on disqualification notices till Friday as it will pass appropriate orders on the writ petition filed by Sachin Pilot and 18 dissident legislators on that day, the speaker's counsel said. Assembly Speaker C P Joshi agreed to the request and deferred his decision on disqualification notices till Friday evening.

The notices had followed a Congress complaint that the 19 MLAs should be disqualified from the assembly for defying a party whip.

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