The Delhi High Court on Wednesday reinstated the seven Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs who had been suspended from the Delhi Legislative Assembly last month for interrupting Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena’s address to the House multiple times. The current Budget Session of the Assembly is likely to end on February 8.
Justice Subramonium Prasad passed the order to reinstate the MLAs. “Since the petitioners have already undergone the suspension of 14 sittings, this court is of the opinion that the petitioners should be permitted to rejoin the House forthwith,” the order read.
On February 16, a motion had been proposed and adopted in the House to refer the matter of the MLAs disrupting the L-G’s speech to the Committee of Privileges. The legislators were then suspended “indefinitely” from the House until the conclusion of proceedings before the panel.
Terming their suspension “grossly unconstitutional”, the MLAs — Vijender Gupta, Ajay Kumar Mahawar, Anil Kumar Bajpai, Om Prakash Sharma, Jitender Mahajan, Mohan Singh Bisht, and Abhay Verma — had approached the court to challenge the Speaker’s move. They alleged in their plea that since the BJP has only eight MLAs in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, suspending seven of them was “an attempt to silence the Opposition” during the crucial Budget Session.
The suspended MLAs also submitted to the court that in response to the allegations of them disrupting the L-G’s speech, they had apologised to Mr. Saxena, and attached his letter accepting the apology to the Speaker.
While reinstating the legislators, the court observed that the decision to suspend them was against the procedure laid down by the House, adding that as per the provisions, only the Speaker, and not the House, can refer the matter to the Committee of Privileges.
“In the absence of any application of mind by the Speaker in referring the matter to the Committee of Privileges, and in view of the fact that the petitioners have not been heard while being given punishment of suspension till the Committee of Privileges decides the matter, and since the punishment under Rule 77 of Chapter XI can be prescribed only after a Member is heard, the direction for suspending the petitioners till the Committee of Privileges takes a decision cannot be sustained,” the court noted.
