Cuttack, Sept. 8: The dispute over the legality of Bhimsen Choudhury continuing as member of the Odisha Legislative Assembly after he abstained from voting during Rajya Sabha election over two years ago has returned to Orissa High Court.

BJP legislature and party secretary Karendra Majhi has filed a fresh petition challenging the ruling of Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat to allow Choudhury to continue as MLA.

On August 1, the Speaker had dismissed, for the second time, Majhi’s petition seeking disqualification of the Bonai MLA for allegedly defying the party whip during the 2010 Rajya Sabha elections.

“The writ petition has been filed with the plea for the high court to set aside the order passed by the Speaker on August 1,” Majhi’s counsel Gopal Agarwal told The Telegraph today.

“Our basic contention is that the Tenth Schedule says if any member of the House belonging to any political party votes or abstains from voting against the direction of the party, he is to be declared disqualified,” Agarwal said.

On June 14 last year, the BJP legislature party had filed a petition before the Speaker asking him to disqualify Bonai’s membership from the House for defying the party whip and deliberately abstaining from voting in the Rajya Sabha polls on June 17, 2010.