Rajasthan Assembly Speaker withdraws plea in SC against initial order of HC

The bench of Justices Arun Mishra, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari allowed the Speaker to withdraw his petition after senior advocate Kapil Sibal said the HC had subsequently passed a detailed order on July 24 in view of which the petitioner wanted to withdraw the challenge to the earlier order and take appropriate legal recourse against the later order.

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“Mr. Kapil Sibal, learned senior counsel, has submitted that the High Court has passed a detailed order and the ad interim order passed has merged into the final interim order that has been passed by the High Court. Thus, he wants to withdraw this petition with liberty to avail appropriate remedy as against the subsequent order. Accordingly, the special leave petition is dismissed as withdrawn, with the aforesaid liberty,” the bench said.

Hearing the Speaker’s appeal on July 23, the bench had refused to stay the HC order and said it needed to hear the matter in detail to decide the question of jurisdiction.

The bench said this after Sibal argued that as per the 1992 judgment of the Constitution Bench in Kihoto Hollohan vs Zachillhu & Others, courts had no jurisdiction to interfere in disqualification proceedings by the Speaker, under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, before a final decision has been made.

Rajasthan Congress rebel MLAs, led by Sachin Pilot, had approached the High Court against the disqualification notices issued by the Speaker. The HC, in its initial order on July 21, asked the Speaker to give them time until July 24 to reply to the notices.

Later, on July 24, the HC directed that status quo of July 14 be maintained on the notices.