SC seeks response from erstwhile NCP legislators in Odisha

The Supreme Court Friday sought a response from the four erstwhile legislators of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) as to why they should not be disqualified from being members of the Odisha assembly after they switched over to the ruling Biju Janata Dal.

The four legislators - Amar Prasad Satpathy, Prashanta Nanda, Rama Chandra Hansdah and Nabin Nanda - soon after taking oath as member of the Orissa assembly as NCP members, announced their merger into the ruling BJD.

A bench of Chief Justice P.Sathasivam, Justice J. Chelameswar and Justice Vikramajit Sen issued notice to four legislators after senior counsel Amarendra Saran told the court that they are impugning the order of the state assembly speaker who had rejected the plea by the NCP's state unit head for their disqualification on technical grounds.

Saran, appeared for NCP's Odisha unit chief Utkal Keshari Parida who has challenged May 2, order of the assembly speaker rejecting the petition seeking the disqualification of four members on the "technical" grounds that the annexure to the petition were not signed and verified.

The petition urged the court to decide the defection petition as going back would be an exercise in futility because by then the current term of the legislative assembly would come to an end.

The court was told that speaker had passed the order four months after the petition seeking the disqualification of four members was filed.

While challenging the speaker's order, Parida's petition sought, as interim relief, a direction to the speaker to suspend the four members from assembly membership and prohibiting them from participating in the assembly proceedings.

The elections to Odisha assembly were held in April 2009 and its next election is due to be held along with general election to Lok Sabha scheduled next year.