Haryana Assembly Speaker rejects on 'technical grounds' Congress' plea seeking Kiran Choudhry's disqualification

Chandigarh, Jul 11 (PTI) Haryana Assembly Speaker Gian Chand Gupta has rejected on 'technical grounds' the Congress' plea seeking seeking disqualification of Kiran Choudhry as a member of the Vidhan Sabha.

Kiran Choudhry and her daughter Shruti Choudhry had resigned from the Congress' primary membership last month and joined the ruling BJP.

Speaker Gupta has rejected the Congress' plea as it did not meet the criteria of the Vidhan Sabha's 'Disqualification of Members on the Ground of Defection Rules, 1986' due to which it was rejected on technical grounds, said a statement issued in Hindi here.

The Vidhan Sabha Secretariat informed the Congress leaders about this on Thursday, added the statement.

In a communication addressed to the speaker on June 19, Deputy Leader of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Aftab Ahmed and CLP chief whip B B Batra mentioned that Kiran Choudhry had been elected as the Congress MLA from Tosham in Bhiwani after the assembly polls in 2019.

The Congress leaders had said according to the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India, specifically Paragraph 2(1)(a), "a member of a House belonging to any political party shall be disqualified for being a member of the House if they voluntarily give up their membership of such political party".

Meanwhile, the statement said that Batra and Ahmed had sent a notice to the Vidhan Sabha seeking Choudhry's disqualification. They had also sent a reminder a few days later.

According to the statement, the Legislative Assembly Secretariat's clarified that a petition is filed before the speaker of the Assembly for such a demand, whereas the Congress leaders merely sent a notice and demanded Choudhry's disqualification as a member of the House.

It is clearly written in the 'Disqualification of Members on the Ground of Defection Rules, 1986' that the petition seeking the termination of the membership of an MLA will be signed by the petitioner and verified in the manner prescribed in Part 5 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 for verification of arguments, it said.

If the petition does not meet the criteria under laid down rules, then the speaker of the Legislative Assembly will reject it.

The statement said that speaker has got the notice received from the Congress leaders examined by experts. During this, it was found that this notice is not meeting the criteria of the rules.

Ahmed and Batra had last month said given that Kiran Choudhry was elected as a Congress candidate and has now voluntarily given up her membership by joining the BJP, she stands disqualified under the provisions of the Tenth Schedule.

"She has incurred a clear disqualification and cannot be counted as a Member of Legislative Assembly for any intent and purpose on June 19, 2024," they had written in their plea, requesting that a suitable notification or declaration regarding her disqualification may be made.

Kiran Choudhry is the daughter-in-law of former Haryana chief minister Bansi Lal. PTI SUN AS AS