The Speaker’s court of Assembly while hearing an anti-defection case lodged against six MlAs on Wednesday foiled the attempts of JVM leader Pradeep Yadav to press in for a fresh lawyer.
Yadav had earlier filed his own ‘wakalatnama’ for the arguments and for presenting the case before the court but today he named another advocate during the hearing. “He presented a lawyer instead of himself for arguing the matter from JVM party. The advocate from the MlAs objected to it and the Speaker sustained their objection. After that, Yadav himself argued in the matter,” said an official of the Assembly present in the court.
Six former JVM legislators, namely Randheer Singh, Amar Kumar Bauri, Alok Chaurasia, Naveen Jaiswal, Janki Prasad Yadav and Ganesh Ganjhu had defecated from the party soon after the poll results for shifting to the ruling BJP. Two of the six were later made ministers in the Raghubar Das Govt. The JVM, citing the provisions of Tenth Schedule of the Constitution challenged the merger claims put forth by the MlAs and filed cases before the Speaker as well as in the High Court seeking their disqualification.
“We presented our case before the Speaker and objected to their claims that the faction of JVM had merged into the BJP. They are putting this argument just to skip disqualification which is imminent. Advocate Rajiv Kumar presented their case,” said Yadav. Raj Nandan Sahay represented JVM chief Babulal Marandi.
Speaker Dinesh Oraon after the hearing adjourned the case till next hearing. “The date of next hearing has not been fixed yet. All the respondents have been told to present list of documents with them related to case and list of witnesses on the next date,” added the official.