Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee will soon decide the fate of the 19 Members of Parliament who defied their party whips during the trust vote on July 22. These MPs can be disqualified under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
He has already disqualified three MPs -- Kuldeep Bisnoi (son of former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal) of Congress, Jaiprakash and S P Singh Baghel of the Samajwadi Party. The cases of three MPs, whose hearings were held in August, are pending with the Speaker. These MPs are: Chaudhary Munawwar Hasan and Ateeq Ahmed of the Samajwadi Party and Ramswaroop Prasad of Janata Dal - United.
During the hearing on the petition filed by the respective party, the concerned MP and the chief whip either personally appear before the Speaker or are represented through their counsel. After each sitting, the Speaker reserves his ruling and then pronounces it in due course.
The next hearing will be held on Thursday. Four MPs -- Gingee N Ramachandran and Dr C Krishnan of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Rajendra Kumar Badi of SP and A Narendra of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti -- have been summoned to explain why their membership of the House should be not terminated.
Second Samajwadi MP disqualified from Lok Sabha
On Friday, the disqualification hearing would be held for two MPs -- Dr M Jagannath of the Telugu Desam Party and L Ganesan of MDMK, while the case of S Ravichandran of MDMK will come up on Saturday.
Next week, the Speaker will consider the cases of Gujarat's expelled Bharatiya Janata Party MP Babubhai Katara, who was arrested in a human trafficking racket, Maharashtra's BJP MP Harisingh Rathod and Chandra Bhushan Singh from the SP. The three MPs will appear before the Speaker on September 24.
Process to disqualify 24 errant MPs begins
The cases of P Pookunhi Koya of JD-U and Biju Janata Dal's Harihar Swain will be heard on September 26. Three BJP MPs -- Manorama Madhwaraj and H T Sangliana of Karnataka and Brij Bhushan Saran Singh of Uttar Pradesh -- have been summoned on September 27.
Somabhai Patel, the BJP MP from Surendranagar, who revolted against Chief Minister Narendra Modi during the Gujarat assembly elections, got suspended from the party and voted against the party's whip during the trust. He, along with his party colleague Kunnur Manjunath Channappa from Karnataka, has been summoned on September 30.
2 Lok Sabha members disqualified under anti-defection law
The hearing of Shiv Sena MP Tukaram Renge Patil of Parbhani in Maharashtra will be held on October 1 while that of Samajwadi Party's Afzal Ansari will be held on October 21.
Sources in the Lok Sabha Secretariat say that the Speaker wanted all the hearings to be held by the end of September, to complete the process of expulsions before the Parliament reconvenes on October 17.
However, he agreed to hear Ansari's case on October 21 after a special request by the Parliamentarian.