New Delhi, July 19: The Supreme Court today sought response of four Odisha Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLAs, who had joined the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) last year on a fresh petition filed by state NCP president Utkal Keshari Parida seeking their suspension from the Assembly.

Parida had argued that the MLAs — Amar Prasad Satpathy, Prashanta Nanda, Rama Chandra Hansdah and Nabin Nanda — were defectors.

The NCP chief in his petition challenged the Assembly Speaker’s refusal on May 2 to entertain his application for disqualifying the four MLAs under the Anti-Defection Law, 1987.

The three-judge bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam, Justice J. Chelameshwar and Justice Vikramjit Sen issued notices to the MLAs and sought their response within four weeks. Senior counsel Amarender Sharan had pleaded that the issue needed to be settled fast because the Assembly’s term would come to an end within a year.

The petition stated that the Speaker had dismissed Parida’s disqualification petition on flimsy technical grounds claiming that the annexures attached with the disqualification applications were not signed by the NCP Odisha chief.

It was pointed out that on January 17, the apex court dismissed the Speaker’s appeal challenging Orissa High Court’s ruling, which had held that he should entertain the disqualification application irrespective of the fact whether it was filed by a member of the House or a non-member.

Both the courts had taken a concurrent view that the Speaker must entertain the disqualification application irrespective of the fact whether it was filed by an MLA or a non-legislator.

Parida alleged that despite the apex court’s direction on May 2, the Speaker dismissed his fresh disqualification application by claiming that the annexures were not signed on the ground that they did not comply with the sub rule (7) of Rule 6 of Orissa Legislative Assembly (Disqualification On Ground Of Defection) Rules, 1987.

The four MLAs, who were elected on the NCP ticket, had moved over to the BJD camp in the wake of an alleged coup against Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik last year. Parida has been maintaining that it was not a merger, but defection by all the four elected members of the party.

Parida insisted that the action of the defector MLAs did not amount to a merger of the NCP with the BJD. A merger could only be of a original political party with any other political party as such provisions of paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution (disqualification under the anti-defection law) were squarely attracted to the facts of this case, he said.

The petition sought stay on the operation of impugned decision of the Speaker and direction to him to suspend the four MLAs from the membership of the Odisha Assembly.