Assembly speaker reserves verdict on disqualification of 5 MLAs case

Lucknow, June 5 (UNI) Uttar Pradesh assembly speaker Mata Prasad Pandey tonight reserved his verdict on disqualification of five MLAs, who had rejoined the BSP leaving the Loktrantrik Bahujan Dal (LBD) on March 1.

The speaker, however, asked the counsel for the MLAs to file their written objections by tomorrow evening after concluding the hearing late this evening.

During over three-hour-long hearing the counsel for the 5 MLAs pleaded that there is no existence of Loktrantrik Bahujan Dal(LBD) hence the petition was not maintainable.

The counsels said as there is no legal existance of the LBD and the MLAs have gone to their parent party from where they were elected to the Assembly thus disqualification under them 10th schedule of the constitution does not arise against them.

They also raised the question about the legal sanctity of the petitioner Yogesh Pratap Singh ,who has termed himself as the chief whip of the LBD. '' There is no legal document which proves that Mr Dingh is the chief whip of the LBD'', the counsels maintained.

Mr Pandey also rejected the plea of the MLAs to fix the arguements after the decision of the Allahabad High Court over an application moved by them demanding relevent documents from the petitioner. Today the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has reserved its judgement on the MLAs plea to instruct the speaker to provide them relevent documents.

Counsel for MLA Ramkrishna, Raghevendra Pratap Singh during previous hearings said they had received only the party list dated April 4, 2006 whereas the Allahabad High Court directive on May 29 last had asked the speaker to give all 'relevant documents'.

The speaker said after the HC judgement of February 28, 2006, the party list was released on April 4.

Petitioner and state minister Yogesh Pratap Singh claimed the five MLAs were deleberately delaying the hearing by moving applications demanding more time and other documents before the speaker and the HC.

The five MLAs were also demanding the current party position list in the assembly and party-wise electoral rolls used during the biennial Rajya Sabha polls on March 28.

Mr Pandey said under the 10th schedule related to disqualification, there was no need for such lists.

Earlier, the counsels of the five MLAs had demanded the list claiming it would decide whether the MLAs had left the party or not.

All the five MLAs -- Jaiveer Singh, Surendra Vikram Singh, Ramji Shukla, Ram Krishna and Dharampur -- had already submitted their preliminary objections on the petition of disqualification filed by (LBD) chief whip Yogesh Pratap Singh on their disqualification from the assembly for violating the whip.

In the preliminary objections, the MLAs claimed there was no existance of LBD. They have also demanded party list during the RS polls and documents relating to the existance of the LBD and its chief whip.

Earlier on May 5, the Supreme Court had turned down the plea of the MLAs to prevent the speaker from hearing their case.

The five MLAs had rejoined the BSP on March 1 after the Allahabad HC by its majority judgement had quashed the split and merger of the 40 member LBD in September 2003.

These 40 MLAs leaving BSP had formed the LBD and later joined the ruling Samajwadi Party.

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