Abhishek Manu Singhvi represented the President of Rajasthan CP Joshi at the High Court.
Jaipur / New Delhi:
Sachin Pilot and the other rebel deputies cannot go to court against the notices of disqualification prematurely, before any decision of the President, Abhishek Manu Singhvi pleaded today before the High Court of Rajasthan. Singhvi, representative of the President of Rajasthan CP Joshi, also disputed the rebels’ argument that skipping two meetings did not mean that they were quitting the party.
Team Pilot, which has 19 members, argued in its petition to the High Court that notices of recusal cannot be served by the President of Rajasthan when the assembly is not in session. The rebels have also challenged a constitutional rule that disqualifies MPs if they “voluntarily” renounce membership of the party they represent.
Mr. Singhvi said that the court did not yet have jurisdiction over the case; the President must first decide.
“The President may or may not make a correct decision. But there can be no interference at the pre-order stage, preventing the President from making a wrong decision,” said Singhvi.
He called the rebel case “much worse” because there were no new grounds for contestation. “The petitioners, in an” overly clever “manner, have raised the same grounds for challenge which have been examined and rejected by the Supreme Court,” he said.
To rebels saying they cannot be interpreted as having abandoned the party for making statements and failing to attend meetings, Singhvi said that “voluntary withdrawal from party membership” should be read widely.
“There is no need to officially resign; dropping out of membership can be inferred from conduct. There is no direct approach for the President to decide (under the constitution). “There is no fixed formula. So how to make a decision is within the President’s domain,” he said.
Failure to attend a meeting of the Legislative Assembly party can be interpreted as dropping membership, but the Speaker must decide, said Singhvi.
The senior lawyer, one of the most sophisticated legal minds in Congress, said, referring to the Pilot team, “Unprincipled defection is a political sin and unconstitutional.”
