VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, Aug 30: Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahto on Tuesday completed the hearing of the anti-defection complaint against BJP senior Babulal Marandi and reserved the judgment. Well-placed sources claimed that there are broad indications that Babulal Marandi is set to lose his membership of the Jharkhand assembly.
The Speaker will hear the disqualification matter of Pradeep Yadav and Bandhu Tirkey on September 2.
The tribunal headed by the Speaker turned down the demand of Marandi’s advocate who wanted an examination of witnesses to prove their points that the JVM was lawfully merged with the BJP as per the provisions laid down in the anti-defection law.
The JVM was a three-member legislative body after the last assembly election including Babulal Marandi, Pradeep Yadav and Bandhu Tirkey.
“The latter two joined the Congress so they were expelled and they were automatically disqualified. Babulal Marandi remained the single member and he merged the JVM with the BJP. My point is how can you disqualify Babulal Marandi when he was the single member. We wanted to examine witnesses and evidence in support of our claim. But the Speaker did not allow it. The tribunal is biased,” said senior advocate Anil Kumar who appeared for Babulal Marandi.
Raj Nandan Sahay was another advocate who appeared for Babulal Marandi. They sought additional time from the tribunal to place their argument. But the Speaker declined and said that the hearing was completed.
Assembly insiders said that with this the Speaker disposed of all three petitions filed against Babulal Marandi seeking his disqualification. The petition was jointly filed by MLA Rajkumar Yadav (CPI-ML), Dipika Pandey Singh (Congress), Bhushan Tirkey (JMM), Pradeep Yadav (treated as an independent), and Bandhu Tirkey who recently lost his membership following his conviction in the corruption case.
Marandi’s advocates objected to the Speaker giving so much attention to disqualification petitions against him but no progress has taken place in the similar disqualification petition against Pradeep Yadav and Bandhu Tirkey pending before him.
BJP MLA Samri Lal along with Saroj Singh and Binod Sharma had filed disqualification petitions against Pradeep Yadav and Bandhu Tirkey. Now the Speaker will hear that matter on September 2.
