Rajasthan HC disposes of BJP leader's plea on merger of 6 BSP MLAs with Cong

Jaipur: A division bench of Rajasthan high court on Thursday disposed of the petition seeking an immediate stay on the merger of six Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) lawmakers with the Congress in 2019 with a direction to a lower court to serve the notices to six MLAs issued earlier by a single bench last week.

A single bench of the high court had earlier sought replies from Speaker C P Joshi and the six lawmakers by August 11 after the BSP and BJP lawmaker Madan Dilawar moved the court against the Speaker’s order upholding the merger. On Tuesday, the BSP and Dilawar filed review petitions seeking a stay on the merger.

Prateek Kasliwal, counsel for speaker CP Joshi said that the special appeal filed by the petitioner Madan Dilawar and BSP is not maintainable.

“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,” Kasliwal said.

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 whereby he declared that six elected representatives of the BSP have merged with Indian National Congress.

The BSP had maintained that the merger was unconstitutional because the party did not merge with the Congress neither at the national level nor state level. As per law, parties merge, not legislators.