The Supreme Court has issued key notices concerning 20 MPs belonging to the Trinamool Congress party. These MPs switched sides and, along with another smaller party, the NCPI, moved toward the NDA. TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking disqualification of these 20 MPs, requesting that Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla take a prompt decision on the matter. A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant heard the petition and issued notices in response.
TMC has strongly argued that winning an election under one party’s symbol and then defecting to another party amounts to a violation under the rules, and has therefore demanded that these MPs be disqualified. The MPs concerned, however, maintain that their move was a legitimate merger. During the hearing, the court initially considered issuing notices to the Speaker as well. However, Tushar Mehta, the lawyer representing the Speaker, informed the court that the Speaker had already issued notices concerning these disqualification petitions.
Responding to this, the court indicated that, beyond merely issuing notices, the matter should be resolved within a fixed timeframe. Since the Speaker’s lawyer was personally present to provide these details, there was no need to issue a separate notice specifically to the Speaker. The 20 rebel MPs named in this case include Kakoli Ghosh, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Shatabdi Roy, Rachna Banerjee, Sayani Ghosh, and Yusuf Pathan, among others. TMC leaders have described this development as a major victory for their party.