RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Feb.9: The Jharkhand assembly Speaker is yet to take a decision on the issue of the merger of Babulal Marandi-led JVM-P with the BJP as the seventh hearing in the matter in the last more than two years remained inconclusive today in the speaker’s court.
Assembly sources informed that the situation came after advocate of Babulal Marandi R.N.Sahay asked for an adjournment. The petition which was listed for hearing was one that was filed by Mahagama MLA Deepika Pandey Singh.
Contacted advocate Sahay for his comment, he admitted the fact saying he became suspicious observing the unusual listing of cases for hearing.
“There are as many as seven cases of similar nature. Out of seven four are related to my client while three are related to Bandhu Tirkey and Pradeep Yadav. Till the last hearing on December 21 last year all the cases were listed together but today I found that there is only one case listed for hearing. When I noticed an unusual listing I decided not to proceed further. I wanted the speaker to amalgamate all cases together and start hearing as all are interrelated but he was not ready for that. In that situation I preferred adjournment,” Sahay said.
This is not the first time an assembly speaker in Jharkhand is facing a problem in deciding the case of defection. Last time when Babulal Marandi was in the JVM and his party MLAs joined the BJP, speaker Dinesh Oraon could give orders only after the house was almost to an end.
Earlier when Inder Singh Namdhari was speaker, a defection petition related to Enos Ekka, Kamlesh Singh and Stephen Marandi remained undecided till the end of the house. When Alamgir Alam was speaker as many as 11 cases of defection remained undecided.