New Delhi, Jun 13 (PTI) The Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court has issued notice to Principal Secretary, UP Legislative Council to explain why a Congress application seeking disqualification of Dinesh Pratap Singh, Member Legislative Council, has remained undecided for two years after he switched sides to BJP from the grand old party.

Singh is listed as a Congress MLC on the Council web site.

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A division bench of the High Court comprising Justices Dinesh Kumar Singh and Pankaj Kumar Jaiswal, while hearing a petition of Congress MLC Deepak Singh, issued notice to the Principal Secretary, UP Legislative Council, to file his affidavit.

Listing the matter for next hearing on June 19, the bench also asked the respondent to explain why the matter has not been decided within the time limit fixed by the Supreme Court in similar matters.

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The Congress leader had approached the High Court seeking direction for the Chairman, UP Legislative Council to decide on disqualification of Singh within four weeks.

"The Supreme Court in Speaker Manipur Assembly case on January 21, 2020 had directed that disqualification petition be decided by Speaker within a period of four weeks. Also the outer limit of three months was fixed for deciding disqualification petitions from the date of filing of disqualification petitions," Rahul Kaushik, counsel for petitioner Deepak Singh said.

Dinesh Pratap Singh, a leader from Rae Bareli, was elected to Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council on March 6, 2016 on a Congress ticket.

However, in 2018 he switched over to BJP and contested against Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli and lost.

The Congress immediately moved an application seeking removal of Singh under Article 191 of the Constitution which states that a person shall be disqualified for being a member of the Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council of a state if he is disqualified under the Tenth Schedule.

The tenth schedule says "an elected member of a House who has been elected as such otherwise than as a candidate set up by any political party shall be disqualified for being a member of the House if he joins any political party after such election."

Kaushik said, "disqualification petition was filed before the Chairman, Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council on May 09, 2018 and which is still pending for the last two years."

The counsel argued that Singh is drawing all the facilities of the Member Legislative Council even though it is a clear case of disqualification as per Article 191 of the Constitution of India read with Tenth Schedule.

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