Twenty dissident Trinamool Congress MPs who joined the obscure Nationalist Citizens Party of India in Tripura in June have been given seven days by the Lok Sabha secretariat to respond to a petition calling for their disqualification due to defection.
Abhishek Banerjee, the national general secretary of Trinamool and the party's leader in the Lok Sabha, filed the case, according to a notice from the Secretariat released on Wednesday.
The letter is dated Tuesday, August 25. On Tuesday, a Supreme Court panel headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, which also included Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, decided to consider Banerjee's request for prompt action in the case and asked the rebels to respond.
The notice cited Rule 6 of the Members of Lok Sabha (Disqualification on ground of Defection) Rules, 1985 and included Banerjee's June 18 petition for their removal from office. The procedures for serving the notice and disposing of it within a certain amount of time are governed by this rule.
"Within seven days of receiving this letter, you are kindly requested to furnish your comments on the petition in terms of Rule 7(3) of the said Rules for consideration of the Hon'ble Speaker, Lok Sabha," the communication said.
Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Satabdi Roy, Prasun Banerjee, Rachana Banerjee, Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, Partha Bhowmick, and Arup Chakraborty are among the twenty MPs listed in the petitions.
Additional names include Adhikari Deepak Dev, Sayani Ghosh, Bapi Haldar, Md Abu Taher Khan, Kalipada Saren Kherwal, Asit Kumar Mal, June Maliah, Mitali Bag, Khalilur Rahaman, Mala Roy, Sharmila Sarkar, and Yusuf Pathan.
