Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) on Friday finally concluded its arguments before the Assembly Speaker court which is hearing the MLAs defection case for over three years from now. The party pressed strongly that set procedures laid down into the party constitution and also law of the land were not followed before the said merger as being claimed.
Presenting the party before the Speaker Dinesh Oraon’s tribunal senior advocate RN Sahay cited various orders and judgments relating to the cases concerning defection of MLAs. “I quoted judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts, and Parliament and Assemblies of Bihar and Assam to establish that it was not a merger but defection.
The MLAs in question not even followed the set procedure for defection laid down under the Election Commission of India’s provisions and thus their memberships should end,” Sahay said after the hearing.
He had already submitted before the court citing constitution of the JVM that neither the meeting of the party’s central working committee was called on the claimed date, nor any resolution of merging the party into the BJP was passed with two-third majority, nor it was on the agenda at that time during the previous hearing.
Now the tribunal has fixed September 14 as next date when defense lawyers would counter the arguments presented by the party that had lost six of its legislators to the BJP which stormed into power after Assembly polls in 2015. It is expected that another two or three dates would be given to the MLAs’ battery of advocates and then the Speaker would pronounce his judgment after taking his own time.
JVM has been maintaining that six of his former MLAs namely Navin Jaiswal, Alok Chaurasia, Ganesh Ganjhu, Janki Prasad Yadav, Amar Kumar Bauri and Randhir Singh had left the party to join the BJP which remained short of the full majority of its own after the 2015 Assembly polls.