NEW DELHI: The SC on Tuesday said suspension of 12 BJP MLAs in Maharashtra for one year is worse than expulsion and as per the constitutional provision, a constituency cannot go unrepresented for over six months.
A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar said the House has power to suspend a member, but not for a period of beyond 59 days and hinted it would only pass an order on the quantum of punishment. "You can't create a constitutional void, a hiatus situation for the constituency. And it is one constituency or 12 constituencies, it makes no difference. Each constituency has equal amount of right to be represented in the House," it said.
The bench referred to Article 190 (4), which says if a member is, without permission, absent from all meetings for 60 days, the House may declare the seat vacant. The court said it would set a "dangerous precedent" if elected members are removed from the House for a long duration.
Dangerous for democratic set-up: SC
It said: "This will be very dangerous for the democratic set-up and complete democratic value will be compromised." It added that in this case its is 12 members and "there can be a case where the number could be 120". The counsel appearing for the state said he would discuss it with the government. The apex court posted the matter for January 18.
On December 14, the SC had sought responses from the Maharashtra assembly and government on the pleas of the 12 MLAs challenging the resolution passed by the assembly to suspend them for a year.
The 12 are Sanjay Kute, Ashish Shelar, Abhimanyu Pawar, Girish Mahajan, Atul Bhatkhalkar, Parag Alavani, Harish Pimpale, Yogesh Sagar, Jay Kumar Rawat, Narayan Kuche, Ram Satpute and Bunty Bhangdia.
The suspension motion, moved by parliamentary affairs minister Anil Parab, was passed by a voice vote.
