The Speaker of a Legislative Assembly has exclusive jurisdiction to decide questions of disqualification of members under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India, and judicial review of the Speaker's decision is limited to jurisdictional errors, mala fides, non-compliance with natural justice, and perversity.

JUDGMENT :

Rajesh Shankar J.

1. The present writ petition has been filed for restraining the Tribunal of the Speaker, Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha, constituted under Schedule-X of the Constitution- the respondent no.1 to pass final order in Tenth Schedule Case No.01/2021 initiated on the basis of the complaint filed by the respondent no.2 on 23.12.2020 without deciding the preliminary objection of the petitioner filed on 23.08.2021. Further prayer has been made for quashing the order dated 30.08.2022 passed in Tenth Schedule Case No.1/2021, whereby the judgment has been reserved without providing any opportunity of hearing to the petitioner. The petitioner has also prayed for issuance of direction upon the respondent no.1 to allow the petitioner to adduce evidence before passing final judgment in Tenth Schedule Case No.1/2021 as well as not to proceed with the case during pendency of the present writ petition or till disposal of the preliminary objection filed by the petitioner.

2. Mr. V.P. Singh, learned Senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submits that the petitioner-Babulal Marandi, along with Pradeep Yadav and Bandhu Tirkey contested the 5th Jharkhand Legislative Assembly Election held in the month of November, 2019, being the candidates of Jharkhand Vikash Morcha (Prajatantrik) [in short JVM(P)] and they were elected as the members of Jharkhand Legislative Assembly from the constituencies- Dhanwar, Poraiyahat and Mandar, respectively. After declaration of result, two MLAs of JVM(P), namely, Bandhu Tirkey and Pradeep Yadav were found involved in anti-party activities and as such a show cause notice was issued by the Principal General Secretary of JVM (P) to Bandhu Tirkey on 17.01.2020 following the instructions of the petitioner, who was the Central President of the party. However, Bandhu Tirkey did not submit his reply to the said show cause notice and as such he was expelled from the party on 21.01.2020 as well as information to that effect was also given to the Speaker of Jharkhand Legislative Assembly. Thereafter, Pradeep Yadav and Bandhu Tirkey joined another political party, namely, Indian National Congress (INC) and the said news was published in a local daily newspaper “Dainik Bhaskar” on 24.01.2020, which was not denied by them. A show cause notice was also issued to Pradeep Yadav so as to explain about his conduct of anti-defection activities and when no reply was submitted by him, a decision was taken on 06.02.2020 by the administration of JVM(P) to remove him from the party and the information to that effect was also given to the Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha. Since two members of JVM(P) had already joined INC, the petitioner being the President of JVM(P) called a meeting of Central Working Committee of the Party on 11.2.2020 and out of total members of 143 of CWC, altogether 131 members i.e. 2/3rd of the total members attended the said meeting. All the attending members of CWC resolved and unanimously approved the issues of expulsion of Bandhu Tirkey and Pradeep Yadav from the party as also to merge JVM(P) with Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and to that effect, the petitioner wrote letter no.121/JVM/2020 dated 11.02.2020 to the Chief Election Commissioner of India. The petitioner also informed the said decision of merger to the respondent no.1 vide letter no.12/JVM/20 dated 16.02.2020. The Under Secretary, Election Commission of India while forwarding the order of the Election Commission of India dated 06.03.2020 through Speed Post/e-mail bearing F. No.56/3/LET/ECI/FUNC/PP/PPS-II/2011 dated 06.03.2020, informed the President of JVM(P) that as per the documents available on record including the report of the Chief Electoral Officer, Jharkhand, the Commission was satisfied that JVM(P) had merged with BJP and, accordingly, JVM(P) had ceased to exist as a separate political party. Thereafter, JVM(P) was removed from the list of political parties and its symbol “comb” was frozen till further order. The Election Commiss