SC refuses to interfere in HC order on speaker

ADVANTAGE PILOT? Voice of dissent can’t be suppressed in democracy, observes SC

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday — in a setback to chief minister Ashok Gehlot and a possible reprieve to his former deputy Sachin Pilot — refused to stay the proceedings of the Rajasthan high court, which is scheduled to pronounce a verdict on disqualification notices sent by the speaker of the state assembly to 19 rebel Congress MLAs, including Pilot.

The top court, which was looking at the limited but crucial question of whether the high court can interfere in proceedings initiated by the speaker even before a decision on disqualification has been taken, said that the issue would require greater judicial examination. It agreed to hear the plea filed by Rajasthan speaker CP Joshi from Monday onwards, and ruled that high court’s Friday decision would be subject to the outcome of the top court’s final verdict.

“As the high court has already heard the matter after prolonged arguments and reserved the order, we are not staying the passing of the order [by high court]. However, whatever order is passed shall be ultimately subject to the outcome of this petition,” said a three-judge bench led by justice Arun Mishra, and also including justices BR Gavai and Krishna Murari.

Though the court did not go into the question of the correctness of the speaker’s decision to issue notice and if the actions of the Pilot camp amounted to giving up the membership of the Congress party, justice Mishra observed during the hearing that “voice of dissent cannot be suppressed… then democracy will shut”. “After all they have been elected by the people. Can they not express their dissent? Can voice of dissent be shut down like this in a democracy?” he told senior counsel Kapil Sibal, who was representing the speaker.

Proceedings in the high court will resume at 10.30am on Friday.

Thursday’s order could be a major boost to the Pilot camp — if the high court on Friday bars the speaker from disqualifying the 19 MLAs, they will remain protected from such proceedings until the top court has reached its verdict. It may, meanwhile, hamper the Gehlot government from calling an assembly session — fearing a no-trust vote from the opposition BJP — because the numbers in the House are still tenuous for the chief minister.

Gehlot said an assembly session would be called “soon”. Gehlot appears to have the support of 101 members —the majority mark in the 200-member assembly ( this does not include speaker Joshi). Pilot has 18 other Congress MLAs and three independents in his camp, taking his tally to 22. The BJP and its ally Rashtriya Loktrantrik Party have 75 seats. One Congress MLA, Bhanwarlal Meghwal, is indisposed, though he is said to be close to Pilot. If Pilot’s tally is added to that of the opposition alliance, it takes their number up to 97. This means a three-member swing from the Gehlot camp to the Pilot camp or to the BJP could lead to the government falling.