SC rejects Jharkhand Speaker's plea against stay on disqualification notice to Babulal Marandi

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to consider a plea by Jharkhand Assembly Speaker against stay granted by the High Court on a disqualification notice issued to former chief minister Babulal Marandi on the merger of his party with the BJP.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian asked senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Speaker Ravindra Nath Mahto to raise all issues before the High Court, which was slated to conduct hearing on Wednesday.

At the outset, the court said it was not inclined to entertain the petition against the interim order, even though Sibal maintained that the disqualification notice can't be challenged through a writ petition. The court, however, asked the Speaker to go back to the High Court.

The court disposed of the special leave petition while asking the High Court to consider all issues including objections to the maintainability of the writ petition.

Marandi was issued a notice for the violation of the Tenth Schedule (anti-defection law) on a plea by ruling party JMM MLA Bhusan Tirkey on December 17. The High Court, however, had last month stayed the notice.

Marandi's Jharkhand Vikas Morcha had won three seats in the 2019 assembly elections, and he merged his political party with the BJP on February 17, 2020, in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Marandi was also elected as leader of the legislature party of the BJP.