Rajasthan HC directs court to issue notices to 6 BSP MLAs who joined Cong

The Rajasthan High Court on Thursday (August 6) dismissed a petition seeking an immediate stay on six Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLAs joining the Congress in 2019.

The court also directed a lower court to serve the notices to six MLAs issued earlier by a single bench last week.

A bench of the High Court had earlier sought replies from Speaker C P Joshi and the six MLAs by August 11.

This came after BJP MLA Madan Dilawar and the BSP moved the court against the Speaker’s order supporting the merger.

The BSP and Dilawar on Tuesday (August 4) filed review petitions seeking a stay on the merger.

Prateek Kasliwal, the counsel for the Assembly Speaker, said the special appeal filed by the petitioner Madan Dilawar and BSP was not “maintainable”, according to Hindustan Times.

“The HC has disposed of the appeal filed by the BSP and BP MLA Dilawar. The court directed the district judge to get the notices served the BSP MLAs as well as if required to take assistance of the Jaisalmer superintendent of police to serve the notices. The court had also directed to publish the notice in a local newspaper and at the same time it is redirected to the single beach that it should give its decision on August 11 on the petition filed earlier,” Hindustan Times quoted Kasliwal as saying.

On August 4, the BSP and BJP MLA Madan Dilawar filed a petition in the division bench of the High Court seeking immediate stay on the merger of six BSP MLAs with Congress last year.

The BSP had prayed to the division bench to accept the special appeal and to suspend the effect of the order of Assembly Speaker dated September 18, 2019, in which he had declared that the six elected representatives of the BSP merged with the Indian National Congress.

The BSP maintained that the merger was unconstitutional because the party did not merge with the Congress neither at the national level nor state level. According to law, only parties could merge and not legislators.