‘Approach Calcutta HC’: SC declines plea seeking speedy disqualification of 10 rebel TMC MLAs

The Supreme Court refused to directly hear a TMC legislator’s request for speedy disqualification of 10 rebel MLAs in West Bengal. It did not decide whether the MLAs should lose their seats. Instead, it said the Calcutta High Court was the appropriate forum for the next step.

The bench, led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, asked the high court chief justice to constitute a division bench. This was meant to avoid the petitioner first going before a single judge and then appealing to a division bench. The court said it did not want litigants to “jump the queue.”

The petitioner can now file the case in the high court. Although the high court was on vacation until November 11, the Supreme Court requested urgent listing once the petition is filed. The decision keeps the disqualification issue alive but shifts its immediate hearing from the Supreme Court to Calcutta High Court.

The Supreme Court directed the petitioner to the Calcutta High Court because it did not want every disqualification dispute sent directly to the apex court. The bench said it could not entertain one state’s petition merely because it had earlier passed orders in another matter. This protects a regular judicial process.

The court also wanted to avoid unnecessary procedural delay. Normally, the petitioner might first approach a single judge and then seek a division bench. Instead, it requested the Calcutta High Court chief justice to list the matter before a division bench directly. That would allow the petition to be considered more quickly after filing.

The high court was on vacation until November 11, but the Supreme Court said it knew that and still asked for urgent listing once the petition was filed. The case therefore remains active, but the immediate responsibility for hearing it lies with the Calcutta High Court.

The Tenth Schedule is the Constitution’s anti-defection framework. It aims to prevent elected legislators from changing political allegiance in ways that undermine the mandate on which they won. An MLA can face disqualification for voluntarily giving up membership of a party or voting, or abstaining, against the party’s direction in specified circumstances. These rules also contain limited exceptions, including a qualifying merger.

A disqualification petition is decided by the Speaker of the relevant legislative assembly. The article cites the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Keisham Meghachandra Singh v. Speaker, Manipur Legislative Assembly, which described the Speaker as acting like a tribunal. That means the Speaker must examine the petition and apply the constitutional rules.

The Speaker’s decision is not a licence for indefinite delay. The cited judgment said the power must be exercised within a reasonable period and set three months for the Manipur cases. In the West Bengal dispute, the petitioner says the Speaker has not decided petitions filed on July 8.

Ten rebel TMC MLAs are named in the petition seeking speedy action. They are Ritabrata Banerjee, Arup Roy, Firhad Hakim, Sandipan Saha, Akhuruzzaman Ansari, Shiuli Saha, Sabina Yasmin, Biplab Mitra, Javed Khan and Rathin Ghosh. The petition asks for their disqualification under the Tenth Schedule.

The petitions before the Speaker were filed on July 8. At the Supreme Court hearing, counsel Preetika Dwivedi said almost four months had passed without a decision. She also referred to an earlier Supreme Court order that had given the Speaker time until October 8 to decide the petitions.

The Supreme Court did not itself decide whether the delay was unlawful or whether the MLAs should be disqualified. Instead, it directed the petitioner to the Calcutta High Court and requested urgent listing before a division bench. That court will now consider the plea for an expeditious decision.

The Speaker of a state assembly receives and decides petitions alleging that legislators have violated the Tenth Schedule. This places the initial decision inside the legislature rather than directly in a court. The arrangement lets the assembly’s constitutional authority address questions about its own members.

The Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Keisham Meghachandra Singh v. Speaker, Manipur Legislative Assembly, described the Speaker as acting as a tribunal while deciding disqualification petitions. The Speaker must therefore examine the allegations, apply the Tenth Schedule and issue a decision. In this case, the petitions concern 10 rebel TMC MLAs.

That responsibility does not permit endless inaction. The Supreme Court said the power must be exercised within a reasonable period and set a three-month period for the Manipur Speaker’s pending cases. It had also given the West Bengal Speaker time until October 8, but the petitioner said no decision had been taken.

A decision against the 10 MLAs could disqualify them from the West Bengal assembly. That would remove their seats from the current political contest and could affect the balance between the TMC and its rebel faction. The exact effect would depend on the assembly’s valid membership and how the remaining legislators align.

The article says 58 TMC legislators formed a separate faction after the BJP won 208 seats and the TMC won 80. The 10 named in this petition are part of the dispute. If disqualified, they could no longer participate as sitting MLAs, while their faction’s strength would be reduced within the assembly.

The political consequences would not automatically settle the TMC’s formal identity. The Election Commission is separately deciding which group is the real TMC and which can claim its symbol. The rebel group uses the name Democratic Trinamool Congress, while Mamata Banerjee’s group uses Mamata All India Trinamool Congress.

India’s anti-defection system assigns the first decision to the Speaker because disqualification concerns membership of the legislature. A designated assembly authority can examine whether a member breached the Tenth Schedule, rather than sending every political dispute directly to a court. This keeps the initial process within the constitutional structure of the legislature.

The arrangement is not unlimited. In its 2020 Manipur judgment, the Supreme Court said the Speaker acts as a tribunal when deciding disqualification petitions. It also held that this power must be used within a reasonable period, setting three months for the pending Manipur matters. That principle is central to the West Bengal petitioner’s argument.

Time limits protect the anti-defection law from becoming ineffective through delay. In this case, the Supreme Court had allowed time until October 8, but the petitioner said no decision had come after almost four months. The court therefore directed the petitioner to the Calcutta High Court for an expeditious decision.