UTKAL KESHARI PARIDA Vs. SPEAKER ORISSA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Since common questions of fact and law are involved in these writ petitions, they are heard together and disposed of by this common order.

(2.) In these writ petitions, the petitioner, who is the President of Odisha State Nationalist Congress Party, is before this Court seeking for issuance of a writ of mandamus to the Speaker of the Odisha Legislative Assembly directing him to dispose of the disqualification petitions filed by him on 10.07.2012 against four members of the 14th Odisha State Legislative Assembly, who have joined in Biju Janata Dal (BJD) by invoking his powerunder para 8 of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India read with the Rules framed by him urging various facts and legal contentions.

(3.) Necessary brief facts are given hereunder for the purpose of elucidating the rival legal contentions particularly the locus standi of the petitioner to file the disqualification petitions in the backdrop of Rule 8 of the Member of Orissa Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on Ground of Defection) Rules, 1987, hereinafter referred to as "the Rules" in exercise of the power under para 8 of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India.