New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain the plea of a Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress faction leader seeking direction to the Speaker of the West Bengal Assembly to expeditiously decide the disqualification plea against rebel party MLAs and asked him to approach the high court.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi disposed of the plea filed by Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay and asked him to approach the Calcutta High Court.
It urged the Calcutta High Court chief justice to place the matter before the division bench for hearing.
The bench ordered, "It seems to us that the petitioner has to take recourse to the Calcutta High Court. We accordingly dispose of this petition at this stage with liberty to the petitioner to file an appropriate petition before the high court. We request the Chief Justice of the high court to list the matter before a division bench for urgent consideration and decide the matter expeditiously."
At the outset, the bench noted that the Speaker was expected to decide the July 8 disqualification petitions within three months.
The counsel appearing for Chattopadhyay said the disqualification petition against the rebel MLAs were filed in July but five months have passed and it has not been adjudicated.
Justice Bagchi observed, "We quite understand. You cannot litigate to jump the queue."
The counsel urged the bench to direct a division bench of the high court to consider the matter so that it does not get caught in another round of intra-court appeals.
"We request an expeditious disposal. There is already an order of this court concerning West Bengal," he submitted.
Justice Bagchi said, "We are aware of the situation. You cannot have all petitions coming here merely because we have passed an order in one".
The counsel said the Calcutta High Court was also on a break till November 11.
Disqualification petitions have been filed on July 8 this year against party MLAs Ritabrata Banerjee, Firhad Hakim, Arup Roy, Sandipan Saha, Akhruzzaman Ansari, Shiuli Saha, Sabina Yasmin, Biplab Mitra, Javed Khan and Rathin Ghosh for their alleged defection after contesting assembly elections on a TMC ticket.
The move led to a split in the TMC after it lost elections to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Chattopadhyay was earlier nominated by the Mamata-led faction party as its Leader of Opposition. However, the Assembly Speaker, instead recognised Ritabrata Banerjee, a rebel TMC MLA, as the Leader of Opposition, along with another rebel MLA as Chief Whip.
On June 18, the Calcutta High Court refused any interim order on the West Bengal Assembly Speaker Rathindra Bose's decision to appoint breakaway TMC group MLA Ritabrata Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition.
Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay had moved the high court, challenging the rejection of his nomination for the post and the appointment of Banerjee as the Leader of Opposition by the Speaker.
The breakaway group has claimed the support of 58 of the total 1380 TMC MLAs in the West Bengal assembly.