Lucknow, Jan 06: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court today issued notices to 40 members of the Uttar Pradesh assembly, who had quit BSP and formed the Jantantrik Bahujan Dal, which later merged with the ruling Samajwadi Party.
A division bench comprising Justice Jagadish Bhalla and Justice M A Khan issued the notices to the MLAs while admitting a writ petition filed by the leader of the BSP legislature party Swami Prasad Maurya seeking quashing of the then Speaker Kesrinath Tripathi's order recognising the JBD and its subsequent merger.
Maurya, in his petition, has also sought the dismissal of the membership of the 40 MLAs under the Anti-Defection Law.
Tripathi had on September 6, 2003 recognised these MLAs as belonging to the JBD and two days later accepted its merger in the Samajwadi Party.
Maurya's counsel pleaded in the court today that the Speaker's action was "improper" as a disqualification petition against 13 of these MLAs had been pending with him.
The court, while admitting the petition for hearing, issued notices to all the 40 MLAs to be returnable at an early date.
Bureau Report
