Patna HC Dismisses Ram Bali Singh's Plea Challenging His Disqualification As Member Of Bihar Legislative Council
The Patna High Court dismissed the writ petition filed by Ram Bali Singh who challenged his disqualification as a Member of the Bihar Legislative Council.
It was alleged that Ram Bali made public statements against the declared policies of the State Government.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice Partha Sarthy said, “We cannot, but notice that there is absolutely no contention raised against the allegations before the Chairman nor any ground raised against the decision of disqualification. … The allegations were made against the Leader in the Legislative Assembly, of the political party, to which the petitioner also belonged. There were also allegations of the petitioner having made public statements against the declared policies of the State Government, passed by the Legislature; when the party on whose platform the petitioner had been elected, was a part of the Government.”
Advocate S.B.K. Mangalam represented the petitioner while Advocate Siddhartha Prasad and Ashhar Mustafa represented the respondents.
In this case, the petitioner came up before the Court based on a judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Election Commission of India v. Bajrang Bahadur Singh; (2015) 12 SCC 570 in which the Court prescribed eight weeks as the limitation period for filing a writ petition against disqualification, till a period is prescribed by the Legislature. The petitioner’s disqualification happened on February 6, 2024 and the petition was filed on February 22.
The eight weeks’ time had expired on April 22 and the writ petition ought to have been placed before a Division Bench which the Registry failed to do so. The disqualification was based on the complainant made by a person. The petitioner, a member of the Legislative Council was disqualified and the writ petition was filed challenging the order passed by the Chairman of the Bihar Legislative Council.
The High Court in the above regard observed, “We would not refer to the allegations as such since there is no contention raised against those nor are they even denied. However, we find that the decision taken by the Chairman regarding the scurrilous remarks publicly made against the leader of the party in the Legislative Assembly and statements made, again publicly, against the declared policy of the Government in which the political party was associated were considered in the light of the decisions in Ravi S. Naik (supra) and Kihoto Hollohan vs. Zachillhu & Ors.; 1992 Supp (2) SCC 651.”
In the aforesaid case, it was held that though every citizen has a fundamental right to free speech and expression; when he is a Member of the legislative body in the capacity of a Member of a political party, he should comply with the discipline, constitution and rules of the party. It was found that the petitioner by his conduct has voluntarily abandoned his political party and hence he is liable to disqualification based on the Rules of 1994.
“The oft-repeated dictum in Baru Ram (supra) that whenever the statute requires a particular act to be done in a particular manner and also lays down the consequence of failure to comply with the said requirement; it would always lead to that specific consequence, on failure to comply and not otherwise, is not applicable in view of the binding precedents that the stipulation in the Rules of 1994 is only directory and not mandatory”, it noted.
Accordingly, the High Court dismissed the writ petition and refused to interfere with the impugned order.
Cause Title- Prof. (Dr.) Ram Bali Singh v. The Bihar Legislative Council & Ors.
Appearance:
Petitioner: Advocates S.B.K. Mangalam and Awnish Kumar.
Respondents: Advocates Siddhartha Prasad, Ashhar Mustafa, Vikash Kumar Jha, Ashish Kr. Ranjan, and Anita Kumari.
