Mumbai: The Supreme Court has termed the one-year suspension of 12 BJP MLAs from the Maharashtra Assembly as unconfirmed and quashed it. On July 6 last year, the MLAs were suspended for a year on charges of misbehaving and misbehaving with the Speaker in the Assembly. The court, in its judgement, said that suspension of more than one session is not in the favour of the House and it is unconstitutional to do so. Justice A M Khanwilkar said that suspending the MLAs for one year is worse than expulsion and would amount to punishment to the entire constituency.

He also said, "No one can represent these constituencies in the House as the MLAs of the area will not be present in the House. It is tantamount to punishing not the member but the entire constituency. The apex court said it would conduct a judicial review of the one-year suspension sentence. However, the Maharashtra government has sought time to file its reply. A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari heard the matter.

The court also said that as per the constitutional provisions, a constituency cannot remain without representation for a period of more than six months. The court rejected Maharashtra's contention that the court cannot examine the quantum of punishment awarded by an assembly. While the petitioner BJP MLAs said that the principles of natural insaaf were violated by the House. The rights of the constituency need to be protected. In this way, the expulsion may allow the government to manipulate the power in the House to win a majority of votes in important issues. Mahesh Jethmalani, Mukul Rohatgi, Neeraj Kishan Kaul and Siddharth Bhatnagar appeared on behalf of the petitioner MLAs.

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