6 MLAs withdraw plea from SC against disqualification from HP Assembly

Six former Congress MLAs on Friday withdrew their plea from the Supreme Court against the Himachal Pradesh Assembly speaker's decision to disqualify them from the House.

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta was told by senior advocate Abhinav Mukherjee, appearing for the former MLAs, that they want to withdraw the petition.

"We knew this was going to happen due to the elections," the bench observed while allowing them to withdraw their plea.

The six former MLAs are now contesting assembly bypolls, which were necessitated after their disqualification, as BJP candidates.

On March 18, the top court had refused to stay the Himachal Pradesh Assembly speaker's order disqualifying the former MLAs who had cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha polls in the state.

The six former Congress MLAs -- Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma and Devinder Kumar Bhutto -- were disqualified on February 29, for defying a Congress whip to be present in the House and vote in favour of the Himachal Pradesh government during the cut motion and budget.

The bypolls for the six assembly seats are scheduled to be held on June 1 along with polling for the four Lok Sabha seats in the state.