Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh, The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday disqualified five Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) MLAs under anti-defection law for merging with the Congress to help Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in 2009.
The development comes on a petition that was filed by HJC chief Kuldeep Bishnoi against the decision of the assembly speaker, who had quashed disqualification petitions against the five MLAs on January 13. The petitions sought disqualification of these five HJC MLAs from membership of the vidhan sabha under the 10th Scheduled of the Constitution for defecting HJC and joining the Congress.
In a 29-page judgment, the Speaker had held, “The merger of the two political parties – Haryana Janhit Congress (BL) and Indian National Congress – has been proved as a fact and as such all the petitions are hereby dismissed. The merger of two political parties is held to have been proved conclusively”.
In his appeal against the Speaker’s January 13 verdict, Bishnoi had alleged that the speaker, Kuldeep Sharma, dismissed his petition on account of malafide considerations just to save the Congress government in the state. Further alleging that the Speaker acted in a ‘biased’ manner while delivering the judgment on his petitions, Bishnoi had also attached a CD in which speaker Kuldeep Sharma has been seen referring Bishnoi as ‘fukra’ (showoff).
He then moved the Punjab and Haryana high court.
Five MLAs including Satpal Sangwan, Vinod Bhyana, Narender Singh, Zile Ram and Dharam Singh had announced their merger with the Congress party immediately after winning as member of state legislative assembly election, held in October 2009, on the party ticket of Haryana Janhit congress. Their support was crucial to the Bhupinder Singh Hooda led government, as the congress party had won just 40 seats and managed to formed the government with the support of the seven Independents and these five defector MLAs.
