The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on the issue of breakaway Bahujan Samaj Party legislators forming a separate party and later merging with the Samajwadi Party in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan concluded the marathon hearing on the appeals against the Allahabad high court judgment quashing the decision of the then speaker Kesrinath Tripathi recognising the breakaway BSP MLAs as a separate group in the Assembly.
While reserving the verdict, the Bench also comprising Justices H K Sema, A R Lakshmanan, P K Balasubramaniyan and D K Jain, asked the contesting parties to file written submissions by Friday.
The 37 breakaway BSP MLAs had formed a separate political party Loktantrik Bahujan Samaj Dal and later merged with the ruling Samajwadi Party.
The high court by its majority verdict of 2 to 1 had quashed the speaker's decision recognising them as a separate group in the Assembly and referred the matter back to him for deciding it afresh.
However, after the high court verdict, five of the MLAs had switched their loyality back to BSP and the Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey had disqualified them.
These disqualified MLAs had also approached the apex court.
Later during the pendency of the petitions, the apex court had stayed the high court verdict and said the breakaway BSP MLAs will continue as a separate group in the Assembly.
The MLAs had defected from the BSP in September 2003 and the then speaker Kesrinath Tripathi had recognised them as a separate group, which later had merged with Samajwadi Party.
The court had taken on record the submission of five MLAs who, after the HC judgement, filed affidavits before Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey owing allegiance to BSP.
Rajendra Singh Rana and other MLAs of breakaway BSP had contended that the speaker cannot decide on disqualification as the three judges of the high court have not given conclusive findings on the issue of the "split".
While Justice Jagdish Bhalla had maintained that there cannot be a one-time split, Justice Pradeep Kant opined that there can be a one-time split.
Chief Justice A N Roy had delivered a dissenting verdict.
The majority view of the high court had held that the speaker had acted hastily and in violation of principles of natural justice while giving recognition to the breakaway group in the Assembly.
The minority verdict had dismissed BSP's petition seeking disqualification of 13 of its deserting MLAs and upheld Tripathi's order to recognise the breakaway group.
