New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to Bahujan Samajwadi Party MLAs and others on special leave petitions challenging the Allahabad High Court judgment asking the Speaker to decide on the applications for merger/split and on disqualification of 40 BSP members in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.

A Bench consisting of Justices K.G. Balakrishnan and P.P. Naolekar fixed March 24 for hearing the interim applications seeking a direction to restrain Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey from taking any decision on the pending issues pursuant to the High Court's directions.

Acting on a batch of petitions, the High Court on February 28 directed the Speaker to decide on disqualification of the breakaway MLAs, who after splitting with the parent BSP formed a party and subsequently merged it with the Samajwadi Party.

"Judgment not clear"

Appearing for one of the appellants, senior counsel Harish Salve said the Speaker could not decide on disqualification or any other issue as the three- judge Lucknow Bench had not given any conclusive finding on the split or merger.

Once the split was recognised, nothing would survive in the petition but the three judges gave a split verdict of 2:1, leaving it to the Speaker to decide on the issues. It was not clear from the judgment what the Speaker had to decide, Mr. Salve said.

Senior counsel Soli Sorabjee pleaded that the Speaker be restrained from taking any decision.

If he proceeded to take a decision, the court should pass an order that it would remain stayed.

However, senior counsel K. K. Venugopal, appearing for the BSP, maintained that though the issues needed to be settled by the apex court, there was nothing wrong in the Speaker taking a decision based on the High Court's directions.

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