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MLAs disqualification: Court adjourns hearing to June 20

The Bombay high court hearing the plea of seven disqualified Maharashtra MLAs adjourned the matter to June 20 and directed the petitioners to serve a copy to the assembly speaker Arun Gujarathi within a week.

Earlier, Gujarathi had disqualified seven out the eight dissident MLAs. Five of the disqualified legislators -- Narayan Pawar, Shivajirao Naik, Narsing Patil, Sirish Kotwal and Vinay Kore -- are from the Nationalist Congress Party, one -- Gangaram Thakkarwad -- from Janata Dal (Secular) and one independent -- Desmond Yates.

Counsel for the petitioners Y S Jahagirdar and Vijay Thorat told the court that the speaker had passed the order of disqualification at 8 am on Thursday and the MLAs were served copies thereof at 8.40 am.

Thereafter, they rushed to court and hence the petition had been drafted hurriedly. By the time the petition came up for hearing, the government had already won the trust vote. Hence the petitioners sought time to amend the petition as they had already prayed for a stay on the speaker's order.

The judges asked the petitioners to produce draft amendment on next occasion and serve a copy thereof to the other side. The petitioners contended that the order of the speaker was 'erroneous' and 'illegal' and against the principles of natural justice.

Complete Coverage of the Crisis in Maharashtra

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