K. Sreedhar Rao, Actg. C.J.

1. The 12th Nagaland Legislative Assembly was constituted with total elected members of 60. In the Assembly, the Naga Peoples Front (NPF) had 38 MLAs, the Congress had 8 elected MLAs, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had 4 MLAs, the Janata Dal United (JDU) had one MLA, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had one MLA and 8 independent MLAs. In the four of the MLAs of NCP, the President of State Unit of NCP was also an MLA and he along with other two MLAs made a petition to the Speaker on 16.06.2014 making a claim that the State unit of NCP has merged with the BJP and that all the three MLAs of NCP have become members of the BJP. In accordance with the resolution, dated 16.06.2014.

2. The Speaker after entertaining the petition regarding merger, issued notices to the President and Secretary of the NCP of National Unit and both of them wrote to the Speaker that there is no merger and stated that three of the MLAs, who have joined the BJP, have voluntarily left the party. The national President of NCP appointed one Semdok as the acting President of the State unit of the NCP. The said Semdok also filed a petition before the Speaker seeking disqualification of three of the MLAs who claimed to have joined the BJP. That apart, he also filed detailed objections to the claim of merger put forth by three of the MLAs stating that there has been no legal merger. Three of the MLAs, who claimed to have joined the BJP, have left their political party from which they got elected as MLAs and joined the BJP. Such a conduct on the part of the three MLAs amounts to voluntarily joining other political party as defined in para 2(1)(a) and that they have to be disqualified.

3. The Speaker on 25.08.2014 passed two different orders one in respect of the petition making a claim for merger and one in respect of the petition filed by Semdok seeking disqualification under "The Member of Nagaland Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on ground of Defection) Rules, 2003". The Speaker held that the petition filed by Semdok seeking disqualification is dismissed as infructuous and also dismissed for not having filed the petition in the format prescribed by anti-defection rules of Nagaland Legislative Assembly. While in respect of the claim of merger, the petition submitted claiming merger also came to be dismissed holding that there is no merger and found that since there is no valid merger in accordance with law, three of the MLAs are disqualified.

4. The three of the MLAs, who have been disqualified, filed WP(C) No. 175(K)/2014. The learned Single Judge at Kohima Bench, by an interim order, suspended the order of the Speaker. As against the said order, the Speaker has filed WA 298/2014 and WA 297/2014 is filed by Semdok on whose instance on the basis of the objection statement filed by him, three of the MLAs were disqualified. In course of hearing of the writ appeals on interim order, at the request of all the parties to the appeals, the writ petition was withdrawn from the file of the learned Single Judge from Kohima Bench and taken up for hearing by this Division Bench.

5. For convenient reference, hereinafter, in the course of discussion, we refer to the three disqualified MLAs as petitioners, the appellant Semdok as respondent No. 4 and the Speaker as respondent No. 1. The other respondents in the writ appeals and in the writ petition are only proforma parties. Hence, no specific reference would be made to them in course of the discussion.

6. The learned Senior counsel Sri Satya Pal Jain relied upon the decision of the Supreme Court in Rajendra Sing Rana and others v. Swami Prasad Maurya and others, reported in (2007) 4 SCC 270, which approved the ratio laid down by the Full Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Prakash Singh Badal v. Union of India (AIR 1987 P&H 263), wherein it is held that "the Speaker would have the jurisdiction in the matter only if any question arises as to whether a member of the House has be