Chandigarh, Legislative assembly membership of Haryana Congress MLA Pradeep Chaudhary went away after he was sentenced to three years imprisonment in a criminal case. After this, the issue of tearing of the ordinance by former Congress President Rahul Gandhi at the center during the UPA government came to the fore. The bill that Rahul Gandhi torn copies became the trap for Pradeep Chaudhary today.
After Rashid Masood and Lalu Yadav, now Pradeep Chaudhary of Haryana becomes the victim of law
Former Union Minister Rashid Masood was the first victim under the Representation of the People Act, based on the Supreme Court’s eight-year-old decision. Former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav became the second victim of this law. Pradeep Chaudhary, the MLA from Kalka in Haryana, is the first public representative who has lost his membership of the Legislative Assembly. Former Chief Minister Omprakash Chautala survived only because he was sentenced before the Supreme Court’s decision. When Rashid Masood and Lalu Yadav came under the law, Masood was a Rajya Sabha member and Lalu MP.
In 2013, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wanted to bring an ordinance to change the decision of the Supreme Court, but former President Rahul Gandhi, who was called the ‘Rajkumar’ of the Congress, tore the copies of this bill in the filled house, whose first victim was Pradeep in Haryana. Chaudhary has become.
Prior to the July 2013 decision of the Supreme Court, such convicted MPs and MLAs would get a concession of three months time in Section 8 (4) of the Representation of People Act, during which they filed an appeal or reconsideration petition in the Upper Court. Those who declared guilty obtained a stay against the lower court’s decision. This would have saved his membership of the House, but now it is not possible to do so.
Following the Lili Thomas decision of the Supreme Court in July 2013, the UPA-2 government led by Manmohan Singh was seeking to overturn the decision by bringing an ordinance. The Union Cabinet then approved an ordinance in this regard, but Rahul Gandhi not only rejected the copy of that ordinance as ‘Complete Nonsense’, but also broke it to pieces. Then the then President Pranab Mukherjee objected to the ordinance and called the then Union Law Minister to him and asked for clarification. After this, in October 2013, Manmohan Singh’s government decided to withdraw this ordinance.
According to Punjab and Haryana High Court Advocate Hemant Kumar, the Supreme Court decision of July 10, 2013 was upheld by a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court in Lili Thomas v. Government of India in September 2014 in the case Manoj Narula v. Government of India.
According to him, if a sitting MP or MLA is declared guilty by a court under sections (1), (2) and (3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, then he is given some kind of special due to his post in section (4) Concession will not be received and they will have to lose their immediate membership from their Parliament, Rajya Sabha, Assembly or Legislative Council.
That’s why Navjot Singh Sidhu was saved
Although before the Supreme Court’s decision of July 2013, such convicted MPs and MLAs used to get a concession of three months time in Section 8 (4) of this law, but now this is not possible. The term of imprisonment for the Kalka MLA Pradeep Chaudhary by declaring him guilty is three years, which is above the period of two years mentioned in Section 8 (3). Therefore, even if Pradeep Chaudhary gets a stay from the session court, his assembly membership will not be restored as per the decisions of the Supreme Court above.
Two and a half years ago, in May 2018, Congress MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu was declared guilty under Section 323 IPC and fined just Rs 1000, due to which his membership was saved because the punishment was less than two years. .
