Tanvi Pilane
Published on: March 14, 2022 at 12:36 IST
An Appeal against the order of the Bombay High Court dismissing his Public Interest Litigation (PIL) Petition was filed by Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Girish Mahajan against the change in Maharashtra Speaker Election Rules.
The ‘Secret Ballot’ system for the Election of the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker has been replaced by the ‘Open Voting’ system by an amendment to Rule 6 and 7 of the MLA Rules.
Mahajan stated that the amendment to the Rules was arbitrary and unconstitutional and further claimed that the election process had been reduced to a selection process.
The Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, while dismissing the Petition stated that the Petitioner had failed to justify their locus and how the appointment of the Speaker was a matter of public interest. He also stated that the Petitioners had failed in showing what part of the amendment was unconstitutional.
Against the argument of the Petitioners that the Speaker would be elected based on the recommendation of the Chief Minister, the Chief Justice noted that the Chief Minister would merely recommend the date for the election of the Speaker and not the Speaker’s name.
The following questions of law were raised by the Special Leave Petition (SLP):
- Does the Governor of State have discretionary powers to fix the date for election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of State Legislative Assembly is concerned?
- Whether the Chief Minister of a state can exercise any power under the Constitution of India without aid and advice of Council of Ministers?
- Whether the Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly can be selected by the Chief Minister of state?
The Petition stated,
“There is an ambiguity as to the entire Procedure of Election by Secret Ballot system has been deleted from the old rules and no other procedure has been deleted from the old rules and no other procedure has been defined. Hence, it gives the entire power of recommending the name of the speaker and deciding the procedure for election of the speaker with the Chief Minister, which raises questions regarding the impartiality of the post of the speaker.”
In his Petition, Mahajan also claimed that as per the new rules the Deputy Speaker will be selected instead of being elected.
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