Four other rebel JD-U MLAs move court

Four rebel JD-U legislators Wednesday filed a petition in the Patna High Court challenging assembly Speaker Uday Narayan Choudhary's decision to terminate their membership.

The development came a day after the high court quashed the speaker's decision to terminate membership of four other Janata Dal-United (JD-U) rebel MLAs for anti-party activities.

"We have filed a petition in the court to challenge decision of the speaker to terminate us," Ajit Kumar, one of the four legislators, told mediapersons here.

The legislators were disqualified in November under the provisions of the anti-defection law.

Poonam Dev, another rebel legislator, said: "In our petition, we have sought the high court's intervention against the speaker's decision to terminate elected people's representatives."

Two other terminated JD-U MLAs are Raju Singh and Suresh Chanchal.

They said they expect decisin in their favour on line of the high court's decsion Tuesday to quash the speaker's decision to terminate membership of four other rebel MLAs.

In a major setback to Bihar's ruling JD-U, the high court Tuesday quashed the state assembly speaker's decision to terminate membership of four rebel party legislators.

Observing that "defection and dissent were not synonyms", a bench of Justice J.P. Sharan quashed the decision of the speaker to terminate membership of four JD-U legislators under the anti-defection law after the ruling party had sought action against them over alleged cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha by-poll.