Supreme Court reserves judgment in petitions challenging one-year suspension of BJP MLAs from Maharashtra Assembly

The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved judgment in petitions challenging the one-year suspension of 12 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs including Ashish Shelar from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly (Ashish Shelar v The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly)..During the course of the hearing, a Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar observed that suspension of an MLA for one year is worse than expulsion, as they can neither seek re-election nor represent their constituency in the Assembly..Senior Advocate Aryama Sundaram, who appeared for the State of Maharashtra, argued that the act of suspending a member from the Assembly for one year is not barred by the Constitution. He referred to Article 190(4) to say that the seat will only be considered vacant if the member is absent from 60 meetings of the House, not calendar days.Hence, suspension of Ashish Shelar and others for one year by the House will not result in the vacancy of their seats, he submitted."190(4) is not absolute. It is not a rule of disqualification...There is a Committee on Members Absence from the Sittings of the House [to monitor absenteeism]. This is where they apply for permission for leave. They examine the absence of a member for sixty sittings and decide whether to condone or vacate the seat. This also shows that the power is discretionary," he argued..He further argued that the Court must only interfere in the business of the House on account of gross illegality. "Otherwise it will attack the core of separation of powers," Sundaram said.He submitted that the scope of judicial review varies depending on the subject. However, the one place where the judiciary "does not tread" due to a separation of powers is the working of the House. .Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for one of the MLAs, referred to the Privy Council judgment in the Australian case of Taylor v Barton. He insisted that the duration of any disciplinary action can only extend to the end of the session."On prorogation, all bills lapse, so all disciplinary actions also lapse...The longer you extend the sentence, the closer you go to perversity," he submitted..Appearing for another of the suspended MLAs, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi argued that the one-year suspension lacks rationality."Democracy is the basic structure. No doubt you [the House] set the rules, you're the master of your House, but you don't have to do it in split second. This is illegal, unviable and arbitrary. It can be immediately struck down for being manifestly arbitrary, like in the case of Shreya Singhal," he submitted..After hearing the arguments, the Court gave one week's time to the concerned counsels to file written notices and reserved its judgment in the matter..Ashish Shelar and eleven other MLAs - Dr Sanjay Kute, Abhimanyu Pawar, Girish Mahajan, Atul Bhatkhalkar, Harish Pimple, Jaikumar Rawal, Yogesh Sagar, Narayan Kuche, Bunty Bhangdiya, Parag Alwani and Ram Satpute -were suspended from the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for allegedly abusing and manhandling Speaker Bhaskar Jadhav in his chambers on the first day of monsoon session..The petitioner MLAs had challenged their suspension claiming violation of Article 14 and principles of natural justice. They claimed to have tendered an apology to the Speaker, while categorically denying the use of foul language and accusations of manhandling. They had sought CCTV footage was of the incident in question, but were refused by the Deputy Speaker citing house rules."The impugned resolution has been passed in abject violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of India in as much as no opportunity of hearing or at least furnishing their written explanation was given to the Petitioners. Further, a perusal of the impugned resolution shows that there has been utter non-application of mind in as much there was no material available for identifying the 12 MLA’s from a large crowd of people," the petitioners had submitted..Along with Jethmalani and Rohatgi, Senior Advocates Harish Salve, NK Kaul and Siddharth Bhatnagar represented the petitioner MLAs along with Advocates-on-Record Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Abhikalp Pratap Singh and Utsav Trivedi..[Read Order]