Calcutta High Court Disqualifies Mukul Roy from Legislative Assembly Over Anti-Defection Breach

A Groundbreaking Court Intervention.

The Calcutta High Court has made this historic and momentous decision; senior politician Mukul Roy has been disqualified of his post of a Member of the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal. Directly involved in the judgment issued by a division bench is a violation of the anti-defection law. This action is under much debate as it is a rare, and strong action of judicial review of legislative issues.

The ruling by the court ends a protracted political and judicial struggle that has drawn the interest of people. The case revolved around the Tenth Schedule of the Indian Constitution that deals with the disqualification of elected members who cross the floor of their political parties. The ruling of the High Court is a significant precedent as it interferes directly in a situation where the legislative organ, the Speaker, had earlier not been able to act in conformity with the law.

This ruling can be regarded as one of the significant wins of the petitioners who wanted Roy to be kicked out of the Assembly. The petition was filed by the Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari on the ground that Roy had acted against constitutional norms. The decision made by the court has technically made Roy vacate his seat to date back to the time he defected.

It is especially interesting since the courts in India are historically reluctant to intervene in the work of the legislature. Deception The last authority on defection usually rests with the Speaker of the House. The High Court however determined that the situation in this case was extraordinary and it had to directly intervene in the case to uphold the Constitution.

Factual Matrix of the Defection.

The Mukul Roy case was based on an undisputed series of events. He was running under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and was elected on BJP ticket. He won the election in a very controversial election process in the state.

But within weeks of the election announcement, Mukul Roy came out publicly and changed his loyalty. On June 11, 2021, he was present in a press conference at the Trinamool congress (TMC) headquarters. He was formally re-inducted in the TMC party which he had been affiliated to before in the presence of the Chief Minister and other senior TMC leaders.

The media covered and reported extensively on this event which was massively aired. The official social media pages of the TMC also announced Roy coming back to the party. This was the crux of the disqualification petition that was made against him. The petitioners claimed that this was a performance of joining another party, which was in essence a voluntary act of renouncing the membership of the BJP, a party under which he was elected.

This was a switch in the public eye but Roy did not quit his job as an MLA. This left him technically a BJP MLA according to the records of the Assembly but politically according to the ruling TMC. This anomaly caused other issues, such as his controversial appointment as the chairman of Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which has always been a verdict position held by the opposition.

The Speaker and his Controversial Position.

After Mukul Roy publicly crossed over to the BJP, a disqualification petition was immediately filed with Speaker of the West Bengal Assembly, Biman Banerjee. The Speaker in the Tenth Schedule is the official who is supposed to adjudicate such an issue. The petitioners provided a great deal of evidence such as video recordings and posts on social media in which Roy was joining the TMC.

There were however notable delays on the matter. The Supreme Court of India was forced to step in, on several occasions, and pressurize the Speaker to hasten the decision-making process. The petitioners were greatly criticizing the prolonged delay, claiming that it was a tactic to enable Roy to remain as an MLA yet he obviously defected.

The Speaker finally refused the disqualification petition. The Speaker in his decision held that there was no adequate evidence to show that Mukul Roy had resigned his membership voluntarily in the BJP. This ruling was instantly put to legal test with the petitioners claiming the order by the Speaker was discriminatory and failed to take into consideration the mountain of the public evidence.

The decision of the Speaker was perceived as very controversial. According to legal experts and opposition leaders the legal decision was not made according to legal merits but political considerations. To allow Roy to remain despite his actions in the open was used as a good example of how the law could be misused by a presiding officer who was of the ruling party.

Final Order and Scathing Rebuke of High Court.

The division bench that included Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md Shabbar Rashidi quashed the order of the Speaker. The Court employed language that was highly emotive, as the finding of the Speaker was termed as perverse and was passed contrary to natural justice.

According to the judgment of the court, none of the evidence availed could make any reasonable person come up with the conclusion that the Speaker made. The bench found that the Speaker had failed to apply the law and a misinterpretation of the factual position. The court concluded that evidence, which Roy joined the TMC during a press conference was indisputable and could only be concluded as the only possibility.