The Calcutta High Court on Thursday struck down the membership of Mukul Roy from the state legislative Assembly, more than four years after he had defected to the Trinamool after becoming a first-time MLA on a BJP ticket.
A division bench of the Calcutta High Court annulled Roy’s membership who had won from the Krishnanagar North seat on a BJP ticket in the 2021 Assembly polls.
The high court also rejected the decision of Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee that Roy was a BJP MLA.
Within a month of the elections, Roy, who had served as the railway minister and was a member of the Rajya Sabha from the Trinamool, went back to his parent party. Soon after he was appointed the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, a position by convention that is held by a member from the Opposition ranks.
The BJP had pursued the case against Roy vigorously inside the House as well as knocking the doors of the high court and the Supreme Court.
“The Speaker’s decision (that Roy was a BJP MLA) taken at the behest of Mamata Banerjee was a challenge to the Constitution. The Congress, CPM, Forward Bloc, RSP and even the Samajwadi Party were all affected by these defections,” said Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of Opposition in the state Assembly. “Mukul Roy attended Trinamool meetings, he was seen donning the Trinamool colours, but was still called a BJP MLA. This is unprecedented. The anti-defection law was turned into a joke.”
Roy who had once famously said, “What is BJP is Trinamool,” carried on with the practice of MLAs switching parties outside the House while remaining members on paper inside.
Since the Trinamool’s emergence in Bengal’s political scene, the anti-defection law has been put to test again and again.
The 10th Schedule of the Constitution states that a member of a House belonging to any political party shall be disqualified if he or she has a) voluntarily given up membership of such a political party, or b) votes or abstains from voting in such House contrary to any direction issued by the political party to which he belongs. The onus to decide on defections lies with the Speaker, with no time limit on making a decision.
After the Trinamool was formed in 1997, as many as 16 legislators remained on paper with the Congress, while politically active with the Trinamool. The state minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay was the notable exception as he resigned from the Assembly after joining the Trinamool and later became the first MLA to be elected on a Trinamool ticket.
Seventeen years ago, the late Hashim Abdul Halim, as Speaker of the Bengal Assembly, had issued orders disqualifying the membership of the late Somen Mitra and Sudip Bandyopadhyay. Both elected on a Congress ticket had switched to the Trinamool. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Mitra and Bandyopadhyay became Trinamool MPs from Diamond Harbour and Calcutta North respectively.
Present state minister Manas Bhunia who was then with the Congress had actively pursued the case against the two defectors.
From 2021 onwards after Roy several others have jumped ship and continue to remain MLAs with the parties on whose tickets they won the polls.
Former CPM MLA Dipali Biswas who accepted the Trinamool flag from the dais of the annual July 21 rally did not appear for any of the 23 hearings that were held after a complaint was submitted to the Speaker’s office.
"This historic judgment has been delivered in a hotly contested writ petition filed by me in my capacity of being the Leader of Opposition. Their Lordships while disqualifying Sri Mukul Ray from being an MLA has quashed the Order passed by the Hon’ble Speaker who had refused to do the same and had delayed his decision in the defection petition filed by me," wrote BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on X.
