New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ordered status quo on perquisites and facilities being enjoyed by five disqualified MLAs, who rejoined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) from the Loktantrik Bahujan Dal (LBD), breakaway BSP group in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.

Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey on June 10 disqualified the MLAs after they violated an LBD whip in the recent Rajya Sabha polls. The vacancies were notified and the Election Commission was informed for holding by-elections. On Tuesday a Bench consisting of Justices K.G. Balakrishnan and D.K. Jain, while ordering notice to the Speaker and others on special leave petitions filed by Jaiveer Singh and others against his order, directed that the matter be listed before a larger Bench for hearing along with the main case on July 14.

Surinder Vikram Singh, Dharampal Singh, Jaiveer Singh, Ram Krishna and Ramji Shukla questioned their disqualification, contending that the Speaker had violated Supreme Court orders. After the Allahabad High Court judgment quashing various orders of the Speaker, they resigned from the Mulayam Singh Yadav Ministry and the posts they held, and rejoined the BSP.

The present disqualification proceedings were initiated by the Speaker on a complaint by Yogender Pratap Singh, leader of the LBD group.

Initially, the strength of the breakaway group was only 13, and the BSP filed a petition before the Speaker seeking the disqualification of the members who broke away but no action was taken.

Subsequently its strength went up to 37. Thereafter, the Speaker passed two orders recognising the breakaway group as LBD and also its merger with the Samajwadi Party the same day. The High Court quashed these orders and asked the Speaker to decide the matter afresh.

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