IMTILEMBA SANGTAM Vs. SPEAKER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The 12th Nagaland Legislative Assembly was constituted with total elected members of 60. In the Assembly, the Naga Peoples Front (NPF) had 38 MLAs, the Congress had 8 elected MLAs, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had 4 MLAs, the Janata Dal United (JDU) had one MLA, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had one MLA and 8 independent MLAs. In the four of the MLAs of NCP, the President of State Unit of NCP was also an MLA and he along with other two MLAs made a petition to the Speaker on 16.06.2014 making a claim that the State unit of NCP has merged with the BJP and that all the three MLAs of NCP have become members of the BJP. In accordance with the resolution, dated 16.06.2014.

(2.) The Speaker after entertaining the petition regarding merger, issued notices to the President and Secretary of the NCP of National Unit and both of them wrote to the Speaker that there is no merger and stated that three of the MLAs, who have joined the BJP, have voluntarily left the party. The national President of NCP appointed one Semdok as the acting President of the State unit of the NCP. The said Semdok also filed a petition before the Speaker seeking disqualification of three of the MLAs who claimed to have joined the BJP. That apart, he also filed detailed objections to the claim of merger put forth by three of the MLAs stating that there has been no legal merger. Three of the MLAs, who claimed to have joined the BJP, have left their political party from which they got elected as MLAs and joined the BJP. Such a conduct on the part of the three MLAs amounts to voluntarily joining other political party as defined in para 2(1)(a) and that they have to be disqualified.

(3.) The Speaker on 25.08.2014 passed two different orders one in respect of the petition making a claim for merger and one in respect of the petition filed by Semdok seeking disqualification under "The Member of Nagaland Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on ground of Defection) Rules, 2003". The Speaker held that the petition filed by Semdok seeking disqualification is dismissed as infructuous and also dismissed for not having filed the petition in the format prescribed by anti-defection rules of Nagaland Legislative Assembly. While in respect of the claim of merger, the petition submitted claiming merger also came to be dismissed holding that there is no merger and found that since there is no valid merger in accordance with law, three of the MLAs are disqualified.