Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court today dismissed the Congress party plea which sought its instructions to the state assembly speaker Rajendra Trivedi to disqualify MLA Alpesh Thakor who despite his resignation from all posts of party had not quit the membership of the house.

The division bench of Justice S R Brahmbhatt and Justice A P Thaker dismissed the petition filed by Congress whip Ashwin Kotwal and decided not to interfere in the matter which is still pending before the speaker.

In a somewhat startling move, the Radhanpur MLA who had announced to resign from all the posts from Congress on April 10, had earlier informed the Gujarat high court that he had never left the primary membership of the party and merely on the basis of a social media post the party can’t demand his disqualification from the membership of the Gujarat assembly.

Appearing for the state, advocate general Kamal Trivedi argued that the speaker could not be instructed to take a decision. Moreover, Thakor has neither resigned from the party nor was convict in any criminal case due to which he could incur disqualification.

Kotwal in his plea had sought that the court should give instructions to the speaker to disqualify Thakor within three days.

Thakor, also the then national secretary of congress and co-in-charge of the party in Bihar had said he would not resigned from MLA post to serve the poor people of his constituency.

He had however not participated in the assembly proceedings on the first day of the monsoon cum budget session that begun today.

Notably, the Gujarat High Court’s decision to dismiss congress plea has probably averted a possible face-off with the speaker’s office which was not bound to take any instructions from the court in such matters.

Congress had moved high court here in May after it had earlier approached the assembly secretary office in this matter on April 25.

Alpesh had claimed to have resigned from posts of congress alleging betrayal but had claimed that he won’t resign from the assembly to serve the poor and needy people. He had posted his letter on social media. He had also campaigned against official Congress candidates in Banaskantha LS constituency and Unjha assembly segment where bye-poll was held simultaneously.

Terming it a sheer indiscipline and anti-party activity, Congress had approached the office of the assembly secretary for his immediate dismissal but as it did not happen the party knocked at the court’s door.

DeshGujarat