Supreme Court asks Parliament to rethink on Speaker's powers

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Parliament to ponder over the power of the Speaker in deciding petitions seeking disqualification of lawmakers, observing that he also belongs to a political party.

The suggestion for devising an independent mechanism to deal with disqualification pleas against lawmakers came in a judgment by which the top court asked the Manipur Assembly Speaker to decide within four weeks the plea of a Congress leader seeking disqualification of BJP lawmaker and Manipur Forest Minister Th Shyamkumar.

A bench headed by Justice RF Nariman had granted liberty to Congress MLA Fajur Rahim and K Meghachandra to approach it again if the Assembly Speaker fails to take a decision within four weeks on their plea seeking disqualification of the BJP minister.

The BJP minister had won the Assembly election on a Congress ticket and later joined the BJP and became a minister. This led to filing of the plea seeking his disqualification.

The Manipur High Court had earlier disposed of their petitions, and refused to pass any order citing shortfalls of its jurisdiction under the 10th Schedule.

"It may not be appropriate for this Court to pass any order for the time being, as regards the inaction or indecision on the part of the Speaker to take a decision and moreover, the judicial discipline and propriety demand that High Court shall refrain from issuing a writ petition of quo warranto to declaring the public office of the minister being held by the minister as illegal", justice KH Nobin had said.