In a major setback to the Opposition, the Jharkhand High Court on Wednesday rejected former Chief Minister Babulal Marandi’s plea to stop six defecting JVM MlAs to vote in the Rajya Sabha bypolls scheduled tomorrow.“After hearing the case for two days, a bench of Justice S Chandrasekhar on Wednesday rejected their plea citing reasons that such a writ could not be filed at this stage. The court also questioned as to why the petitioner remained silent for so many days after a notification was issued by Election Commission for holding Rajya Sabha bypolls in the state,” said Advocate General Binod Poddar.
According to Poddar, two weeks’ time has been given by the court to file counter affidavit by the Speaker as well as the six defecting MlAs to put their points before the court.“A major portion of the petition filed by Babulal has virtually been rejected by the court on record stating that it could not grant relief to the petitioner as the court does not have the power of injunction at this state,” said the AG. Marandi had filed a writ petition seeking to restrict the six defecting MlAs of JVM, who later joined BJP, from exercising their franchise in the RS by-poll on the ground that it was contrary to the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. The JVM chief had also filed a similar petition with Speaker Dinesh Oraon, who is slated to hold a court on July 3 in this regard.
Marandi, in his petition, stated that the interim order passed by the Assembly Speaker on February 12, 2015 should be cancelled as passing such an order was beyond the jurisdiction of the Jharkhand Assembly. The speaker in its order of February 12 stated that the six MlAs who defected from JVM (P) will be considered as BJP MlAs till further orders as prima facie it appears to be a matter of sub-para (2) of para (4) of the 10th schedule of the Constitution of India.Babulal in his writ, had also opposed the list of MlAs prepared by the Assembly Secretariat on June 24, which was totally different from the list prepared by the Election Commission of India.
The six MlAs -- Navin Jaiswal, Amar Kumar Bauri, Ganesh Ganjhu, Alok Chaurasia, Janki Prasad Yadav and Randhir Singh, after getting elected on JVM (P) ticket had officially joined the BJP on February 11, taking its tally in the 81-member state assembly to 43.The ruling alliance currently has 47 legislators in the House, including four MlAs of Ajsu Party, oldest pre-poll alliance partner of BJP in the state.BJP has fielded noted journalist M J Akbar, while Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) has nominated former minister Haji Hussain Ansari for these Rajya Sabha by-polls, which has been necessitated following the resignation of K D Singh.