BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Assembly Speaker Surama Padhy dismissed disqualification petitions filed against 11 MLAs accused of cross-voting during the March 16 Rajya Sabha elections, defying party whip.
Eight MLAs were from the BJD, and three were from the Congress.
The Speaker, in separate orders, held that the petitions were dismissed as they lacked proper verification and supporting materials.
She cited Rule 6, particularly sub-rules (6) and (7), in the Members of the Odisha Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on Ground of Defection) Rules as a reason.
A notification issued by the Assembly secretariat in this regard noted, “The petition is cryptic, vague, unsubstantiated and does not fulfil the statutory requirements to be gone into on merits, even assuming for the sake of argument, but not admitting, that the contents are otherwise worthy of being enquired into."
"Therefore, the petition suffers from gross infirmity or defects have been presented in sure ignorance of the statutory requirements and do not deserve any consideration," it added.
The Speaker said the evidence against the MLAs did not establish voluntary resignation or defection under paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
The order further noted that the petitions were not verified in the manner prescribed under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.
The BJD had submitted separate petitions against the eight MLAs shortly after the elections seeking their disqualification.
The party had also suspended Chakramani Kanhar (Baliguda), Naba Kishore Mallick (Jayadev), Souvic Biswal (Choudwar-Cuttack), Subasini Jena (Basta), Ramakanta Bhoi (Tirtol) and Devi Ranjan Tripathy (Banki), accusing them of cross-voting and violating party whip.
Two other MLAs, Arvind Mohapatra, who also allegedly cross-voted in the RS polls, had been suspended earlier from the party for anti-party activities.
Meanwhile, Congress had also sought the disqualification of three of its MLAs, Sofia Firdous (Barabati-Cuttack), Ramesh Chandra Jena (Sanakhemundi), and Dasarathi Gamango (Mohana) for allegedly voting against the party lines. The party had suspended them as well.