Rajasthan High Court: Satish Kumar Sharma, J., has allowed the Sachin Pilot camp to amend their petition challenging correctness of notice issued by the Speaker of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly.
Sachin Pilot, the former deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan, along with 18 other Congress MLAs, has challenged the disqualification notice issued to them by the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly Speaker asking them to explain anti-party activities.
The Pilot camp in their petition has stated that they had genuine grievances in the manner in which the present Ashok Gehlot led Rajasthan State Government was functioning as the voices of the masses was not being heard. But the expression by petitioners of their grievances was not tolerated by the Chief Minister.
It is further stated that sensing the brewing discontent, the Chief Minister called a Congress Legislative Party meeting on 13 July without any specific agenda and levelling baseless charges against the petitioners. This meeting was not attended by the petitioners. It is stated that the CM has ordered an enquiry by the Special Operations Group in order to investigate the petitioners which was a ploy to threaten them from raising their voice against inefficiency of the leadership. To the shock and surprise of petitioners, the Congress through its Chief Whip filed a complaint, taking note of which the petitioners were issued a notice by the Speaker on 14 July seeking an explanation within 2 days.
Senior Counsel, Harish Salve appeared on behalf of the petitioners to file an application for amendment to challenge the constitutional validity of some provisions.
Senior Counsel, Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, M.S. Singhvi and Abhay Bhandari, Advocate General appeared on behalf of the respondents to oppose the petition.
Bench without expressing any opinion listed the petition on filing of the application for amendment of the writ petition so that appropriate consideration may be made on that count. [Prithviraj Meena v. Speaker, 2020 SCC OnLine Raj 1108 , decided on 16-07-2020]
