It is known to all that Rourkela MLA and BJD, Rourkela district president Sarada Prasad Nayak has a good number of revilers in his own party. Besides, he is in a legal complicacy after he won the 2019 Assembly election.
After losing the 2004 Assembly election, Nayak was rehabilitated at the Rourkela Development Authority (RDA) as its Chairman in the same year. Since then, he has been continuing till 2019. While he contested and won the 2019 Assembly election, he had to quit the previous post.
But whether he has quit the post before filing the nomination for the election or left after winning election is a matter of probe. His immediate rival candidate of BJP Nihar Ray has filed a case in this matter in the Orissa High Court.
In his plaint Ray has alleged that Nayak had left the RDA Chairman post only after election; so his election may be declared void as it violets the norms of office of profit. The court has accepted the petition and due to covid restriction in court activities the hearing has been delayed. In another case Nayak may also be in trouble. After being elected as MLA Rourkela Nayak has also simultaneously been holding the office of Chairman, District Planning Committee, Sundargarh since August, 2019. Since then, as Chairman. District Planning Committee Nayak has been enjoying the status of Minister of State with pecuniary advantage.
Not only Nayak but also 21 more BJD MLAs are appointed in District Planning Committee and Special Development Committee. So, under Article 191(1)(a) of the Constitution a petition has been filed in the Orissa High Court by one Samarendra Beura to disqualify all those 22 MLAs under Office of the profit Act.
A two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice S K Panigrahi, while adjudicating the plea, asked the Governor of Odisha to dispose the petition. So, now the ball is in the Governor’s court. Meanwhile, opposition parties such as BJP and Congress have been holding rally and demonstration urging the early disqualification of Nayak. It may also be noted here that to accommodate party MLAs in 2016 the State Government has brought certain amendment called as Odisha Offices of Profit (Removal of Disqualifications) Amendment Act, 2016.
In this amendment three appointment of MLAs in the District Planning Committee constituted under the Odisha District Planning Committees Act, 1998 (Odisha Act, 8 of 1998), the Western Odisha Development Council established under the Western Odisha Development Council Act, 2000 (Odisha Act 10 of 2000) and State Planning Board constituted by the State Government under Resolution No. 14502, dated the 27th July, 1998 by the Planning and Co-ordination Department” will not be treated as Offices of Profit.
But it is claimed that though the amendment has been made but so far it has not been passed in Assembly. Neither has it got the nod of the Governor. So, Nayak’s trouble will exist till the final decision of the Governor, feel many.