Supreme Court issues notice to Nagaland Assembly Speaker, two legislators on merger issue

Kohima, May 8, 2019:

Today a bench comprising of the Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta of Supreme Court issued a notice to the Speaker of Nagaland Assembly Vikho o-Yhoshu, two MLAs and NDPP the ruling political party of Nagaland on the special leave petition (SLP) filed by NPP seeking to set aside the order of Speaker of Nagaland Legislative Assembly who had accepted the merger of two MLAs elected on the symbol of NPP with NDPP.

The Supreme Court court was further pleased to issue notice on application for Stay. Mr A. Sharan Senior Advocate and Amit Kumar Advocate along with Avijit Mani Tripathi AOR appeared and argued for NPP and Mr. Mukul Rohatgi appeared and argued for the respondents.

The issue involved in the SLP is of far-reaching consequences in smaller States of India, the parties have often been seen trying to cobble majority by engineering defection in smaller parties by getting merged legislative party and claim merger of original political party. It is against the mandate of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.

Earlier, the NPP had challenged the order of the Speaker of Nagaland Legislative Assembly before Supreme Court by way of SLP which was registered as Diary No 12164-2019 in early April.

The NPP had argued that the order of the Speaker is in gross violation of paragraph 4 of Xth Schedule of the Constitution whereby two Legislators elected as members of NPP have been allowed to be merged with the ruling party that is NDPP.

The NPP had also said that it violated the principle of natural justice as no notice was issued to the NPP before passing the order on the merger of two legislators with NDPP. Furthermore, there was no merger of the original political parties.