New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on 37 Bahujan Samajwadi Party MPs who defected and later merged with the ruling Samajwadi Party in 2003.
A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan finished hearing appeals against the Allahabad High Court’s judgement quashing the Speaker’s decision to recognised the BSP MLAs as a separate party in the Assembly. The Bench asked all sides in the case to file written submissions by Friday.
The 37 MLAs formed the Loktantrik Bahujan Samaj Dal and merged with the ruling SP. The High Court had quashed the Speaker's decision recognising them as a separate group in the Assembly and reffered the matter back to him for deciding it afresh.
However, after the High Court verdict, five of the MLA had switched their loyality back to BSP and the Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey had disqualified them.
These disqualified MLAs had also approached the apex court. Later during the pendency of the petitions, the apex Court had stayed High Court verdict and said the breakaway BSP MLAs will continue as a separate group in the Assembly.
The MLAs had defected from the BSP in September 2003 and the then Speaker Kesri Nath Tripathi had recognised them as a separate group which later had merged with Samajwadi Party. The court had taken on record the submission of five MLAs who, after the HC judgement, filed affidavits before Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey owing allegiance to BSP.
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