Showdown spree in Haryana Legislative Assembly

The recent catena of events in the Haryana Legislative Assembly divulges that Legislators in Haryana are bitten by publicity bug. They do not want to let any opportunity to slip away to garner some brownie points out of it. The countdown for a showdown set off with the filing of petition by the HJC supremo with the Honb’le Speaker for disqualification of membership of MLAs of his party who crossed over to Congress fold in the garb of a so called merger based on the principle of 2/3rd majority drawing its purported sanctity from the clause 4 of the Tenth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. As of now, the matter is hanging fire in the office of the Speaker but all set to travel to the Apex Court while passing through and halting at many intermediate designated Stations in the transit ( in deference to inderogable legal rituals), and by the time any order will attain finality, in every likelihood the term of the Present Legislative Assembly would come to an end. Another similar petition is also moved by the INLD. The Honb’le Punjab & Haryana High Court is also seized of the similar matter. The strain of slugfest again surfaced with the picketing of House by the HJC workers led by its supremo which brought to the fore the deep seated rancour, hostilities and intolerance to dissidence by the contemporary ruling regimes (it is omnipresent in India irrespective of States and political parties) towards the opponents and vice versa is, however, anathema to the tenets of democratic polity. A Privilege motion is also underway against the Leader of opposition Sh. Om Prakash Chautala. The pathos of this melodrama is further deepened by the reported reference to the Honb’le Governor of Haryana by a Senior Congress Leader for disqualification of an INLD MLA Sh. Sher Singh Badshami (Former Member of HPSC and now Deputy Leader of the INLD Legislature Party) under Article 192 of the Constitution allegedly for having incurred the disqualification as envisaged in the Representation of People Act, 1951 enacted under Article 191 (1) (e) of the Constitution since the Supreme Court had answered a Presidential reference under Article 317 of the Constitution in affirmative against the said INLD MLA. However, it is to be noted that section 9(1) of the said Act reads as hereunder:-
“9. Disqualification for dismissal for corruption or disloyalty. —(1) A person who having held an office under the Government of India or under the Government of any State has been dismissed for corruption or for disloyalty to the State shall be disqualified for a period of five years from the date of such dismissal.”
Ex-facie the application of above cited provision requires that person in question must have been a Government servant (mind it Government servant and Public servant is not one and the same thing) and hence, consequently it calls for the resolution of a question whether the holder of a Constitutional office as in the case of a member of HPSC can be said to have held an office under the Government of a State. The determination of this thorny question will involve delving into Constitutional and legal nuances and subtleties. Moreover, another moot point is that the prohibitory sway of above provision lasts only for five years from the date of dismissal and hence it is to be seen that whether the said MLA contested the election when he was still under the scanner of the said provision. However whatever may be the outcome, it leaves an open question to be pondered over whether it is in the fitness of things from the standpoint of minimal morality, ethics, propriety and rectitude expected from the politician to give ticket to a person to contest an election who stands indicted by the Highest Court of the Land for misuse of Constitutional position.
The protracted and internecine legal battle ahead is in the offing. The hapless common citizenry is anguished and aghast at the bizarre turn of events. But presumably our politicians must be callously unaffected and condescendingly complacent.