HC stays disqualification of five Haryana MLAs

Punjab and Haryana High Court today stayed the disqualification of five Haryana MLAs who had quit Haryana Janhit Congress and joined Congress, by a single judge of the court about four months ago.
A Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Shiavax Jal Vazifdar and Justice Augustine George Masih fixed April 27 as the next date for hearing.
One of the grounds of appeal was that the case was not of defection.
Appearing before the Bench, advocate Abhishek Arora contented that it was, rather, a case of merger of one legislative party with another.
The stay order came more than five years after MLAs Satpal Sangwan, Vinod Bhayana, Narendra Singh, Zile Ram Sharma and Dharam Singh joined the Bhupinder Singh Hooda led government.

Taking up the petition filed by HJC chief Kuldeep Bishnoi, a single judge of the High Court had disqualified the MLAs from holding "any remunerative political post" from November 2009 for "period provided under Article 361B of the Constitution", that is the date on which their term as members expires, or till the date they contest the elections to the House and are declared elected, whichever is earlier.

The MLAs had won the elections on HJC (BL) ticket. Soon after the elections, four of the MLAs claimed that a decision had been taken to merge HJC (BL) with the Indian National Congress.

The Speaker, on November 9, 2009, accepted the plea for merger and to recognise the MLAs as INC members in the Assembly.
The Speaker, on January 13, 2013, also rejected an application for their disqualification, resulting in the filing of the petition.
On October 9 last year, the High Court set aside the order of the then Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Sharma accepting the "merger" of five members of HJC (BL) into Congress in 2009, terming it as "hasty" and "bad in law".
The court said there was no proof of merger of the original political party and that the decision was against constitutional mandate.