‘Rajasthan heading for Constitutional crisis’

Rajasthan is facing a Constitutional crisis and a decision to avoid it is left to the cognisance of the Supreme Court, said State Assembly Speaker CP Joshi on Wednesday announcing his decision to challenge the Rajasthan High Court’s decision asking him to delay the process of disqualification of 19 rebel MLAs, including former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot.

The Congress has also cried foul over the Enforcement Directorate raids at Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s brother Agrasen Gehlot’s residence in Jodhpur in connection with the alleged fertiliser scam. It accused the BJP of playing petty politics as its plans to topple the Gehlot Government did not succeed.

The chances of an urgent hearing on the Speaker’s plea diminished as the apex court’s registry till 3 pm could not inform lawyer Sunil Fernandes, the counsel for Joshi, about the clearance of the petition for an urgent hearing by a bench. A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde later told Congress leader and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was appearing in another matter, to raise the issue of urgent listing before the apex court’s registry. Sibal had raised the issue of having a mechanism in the top court for urgent mentioning and listing of petitions like the one filed by the Speaker.

Joshi has challenged the Rajasthan High Court’s July 21 order which said the verdict on the petition filed by the 19 MLAs, challenging the disqualification notices, will be pronounced on July 24 and asked him to defer the disqualification proceedings till then. The proceedings under the Tenth Schedule (which deals with disqualification of lawmakers) before the Speaker are proceedings of the Legislature and as such cannot be interfered with as repeatedly held by this Court as envisaged under Article 212 read with para 6(2) of the Tenth Schedule, the plea said.

Addressing reporters, Joshi said he accepted the directions from the High Court. “But that doesn’t mean that one democratic institution can encroach on the functioning of another democratic institution. That is why I asked my counsel to file a special leave petition in Supreme Court. This means that we are heading for a constitutional crisis.

Role of Speaker

“The role and authority of the Speaker is well defined in the Constitution. So if that authority gets circumvented, that means there is an attempt to diminish or weaken that authority. It is a threat to Parliamentary Democracy. So to avoid a constitutional crisis, I thought I should file an SLP at the Supreme Court,” Joshi said.

He added that it is a question of the honour of an office, not of an individual. He hoped that the apex court will give a clear definition of the roles by upholding the Constitution.

ED raids

Commenting on the ED raids, Congress’s communications in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala, who is camping in Jaipur as an emissary of the high command, charged that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created a raid raj in the country but the Congress cannot be scared. “When Modi-ji’s and his government’s tactics failed and people and MLAs of Rajasthan did not fall prey to BJP’s conspiracy, an outraged Centre and PM Modi-ji started conducting raids at CM Gehlot’s elder brother’s residence,” he said. “His fault is just that he is the elder brother of CM Ashok Gehlot. He is not in politics nor has he any concern with politics. But, the ED is conducting raids under security of the CRPF and the BSF,” Surjewala added.

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