Bengal Assembly secretariat likely to challenge HC’s order on Mukul Roy’s MLA status

Kolkata: The West Bengal Assembly Secretariat has started mulling the legal options to move the Supreme Court to challenge the decision of a division bench of the Calcutta High Court last week, striking down the membership of Mukul Roy in the House. Insiders from the state Assembly secretariat said that the office of the Speaker, Biman Bandopadhyay, has already started consulting the experts for possible legal actions in the matter.

On Monday, the state Advocate General, Kishor Datta, also turned up at the Assembly and met the Speaker. Although neither the Speaker nor the Advocate General uttered a single word about the subjects discussed at the meeting, the development itself had sparked possibilities of the state Assembly secretariat challenging the Calcutta High Court’s order in the apex court. The Speaker also had not elaborated on the next move by his office in the matter, and just said he is evaluating what could be done in the matter.

On November 13, the Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi not only cancelled Roy’s House membership but also quashed the order passed by the Speaker earlier, refusing to cancel Roy’s membership from the State Assembly. Roy, a former Trinamool Congress General Secretary, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before the 2021 West Bengal elections and also successfully contested as a BJP candidate in Krishnanagar (Uttar) Assembly constituency in Nadia district.

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However, he joined Trinamool Congress just days after the results were declared, when the Trinamool Congress came to power for the third consecutive term with a massive majority. But he did not resign as a member of the State Assembly and officially continued as a BJP legislator there. The Assembly Speaker rejected the BJP’s plea for the cancellation of Roy’s membership from the Assembly.

The Speaker said that since Roy was officially a BJP candidate, his membership could not be cancelled. Thereafter, the BJP approached the Calcutta High Court seeking the cancellation of Roy’s membership from the House as a legislator from the Krishnanagar (Uttar) Assembly constituency. After a prolonged hearing in the matter, on November 13, the Calcutta High Court’s division bench of Justice Basak and Justice Rashidi finally cancelled Roy’s membership from the House.