JAIPUR: Sacked Rajasthan deputy CM Sachin Pilot and his band of 18 Congress MLAs on Thursday filed a petition in the high court, challenging the constitutional validity of “some provisions” in the legislature rules invoked by the Speaker to issue them disqualification notices on grounds of defying the party whip and staying away from CLP meetings on consecutive days.
Challenging Congress’s reliance on the (anti-defection) law to stem dissent, the petition argues that it could potentially have dangerous consequences such as an elected representative being deprived of assembly membership at the “whims and fancies of the leader of the party”.
Two versions of the petition were heard during the day, first at 3pm and again at 5pm, before the single-judge bench of Justice Satish Kumar Sharma acceded to a plea to list the matter before a division bench.
Pilot’s lawyers — Harish Salve, Mukul Rohatgi and Devadutt Kamat — had sought time