Supreme Court to Hematochal Pradesh Rebel MLAs Case on Tuesday

On Tuesday, the six rebel Congress MLAs from Himachal Pradesh will present their case to the Supreme Court. The MLAs had contested the Speaker's disqualification after they cast cross-party votes in the most recent Rajya Sabha elections in Himachal Pradesh. The plea will be heard by a bench consisting of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Dipankar Datta, and Prashant Kumar Mishra.
They were disqualified on February 29 by Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania for "defying" the Congress whip's mandate that they be present in the House and cast votes on the budget.In the Rajya Sabha election on February 27, the rebels had cast their votes in support of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan. Cross-voting was the reason senior Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi lost the Rajya Sabha election.Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur, and Chetanya Sharma are the disqualified MLAs.

The Himachal Pradesh assembly's effective strength decreased from 68 to 62 after their disqualification, and the number of Congress MLAs decreased from 40 to 34.An MLA was disqualified for the first time in Himachal Pradesh for violating the anti-defection law, which was designed to prevent defections.

The Speaker declared on February 29 that the six MLAs would be removed from office due to their disobedience of the party whip and the anti-defection law. He declared that they were no longer House members, effective right away.
The Parliamentary Affairs Minister filed the petition to remove them from office.
Representing the rebel Congress MLAs, senior attorney Satya Pal Jain had claimed that they had only received the show-cause notice and not the copy of the petition or the annexure. Additionally, he emphasized that while responding to the notice was required to be done within seven days.Any elected member who willingly resigns from their political party, votes in the House, or abstains from voting in defiance of directives from their political party faces disqualification under the anti-defection law.

The Speaker said that although the rebel MLAs had signed the attendance register, they had not voted on the budget. They received emails and notices via WhatsApp for disobeying the whip, asking them to come to the hearing.