Rajasthan High Court on Friday directed the Assembly Speaker to defer his action on the disqualification notices issued to Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident Congress MLAs till July 21 evening.
Hearing on a writ petition moved by Mr. Pilot and others challenging the Speaker's notices has been adjourned to July 20.
Speaker C.P. Joshi had earlier given time till Friday afternoon to the MLAs of the Pilot camp to respond to his notices.
The High Court also allowed Congress Chief Whip Mahesh Joshi, who had filed the plea for disqualification before the Assembly Speaker, to be impleaded as a party in the case and asked him to file his reply by Saturday.
The notices had asked the MLAs to respond by Friday to the Congress move to disqualify them from the state assembly.
Speaker C.P. Joshi was expected to take up the matter at 5 pm, instead of 1 pm as mentioned in the notices.
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The dissidents’ petition first came up before Justice Satish Chandra Sharma on Thursday, but their advocate Harish Salve sought time to file a fresh petition. Later, in the evening, the petition was referred to a division bench.
On Friday, the petition was taken up a by a bench of Chief Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice Prakash Gupta.
The bench accepted a plea by Congress chief whip Mahesh Joshi to include him as a respondent in the case.
The notices were served after the party complained to the Speaker that the MLAs had defied a whip to attend two Congress Legislature Party meetings, on Monday and Tuesday. The Pilot camp, however, argues that a party whip applies only when the assembly is in session.
Mr. Pilot was sacked as deputy chief minister and the president of the state unit of the party after he rebelled against Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
