PANAJI: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has reserved order in a disqualification petition filed against Health Minister and former Congress MLA Vishwajit Rane.
The Congress has filed the petition before the High Court seeking disqualification of Rane for defying the party whip during the vote of confidence of the Parrikar government on March 16, 2017.
During the hearing before the High Court a counsel for the petitioner contended that Rane had signed the party whip directing all its MLAs to vote against the government.
However, after taking oath as an MLA Rane left the assembly defying the party whip during the trust vote and thus incurred disqualification the moment he didn’t vote against the Parrikar government.
A counsel for Rane contended that legislative assembly Speaker is the primary and only authority to decide on disqualification of an MLA. The counsel argued that the petitioner should have met the Speaker first. Rane’s counsel also raised preliminary objection on maintainability of the petition.
The High Court after hearing the arguments has reserved the order, which is likely to be pronounced next week.
Rane had been elected from the Valpoi constituency on Congress ticket. But party’s failure to form government despite emerging as the single largest party prompted him to defy the whip on the day of the vote of confidence which he had signed. After that, he took oath as an MLA and later without intimating his party leaders walked out of the assembly and resigned from the Congress.