NEW DELHI: There is no stay by the Supreme Court on the disqualification of rebel Congress MLAs in Himachal Pradesh. The Speaker had disqualified the MLAs for defecting and voting for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections and abstaining from the budget vote. A bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Dutta heard the plea of ​​the MLAs. Supreme Court issued a notice to the Speaker of the Himachal Assembly on a petition filed by rebel MLAs challenging the disqualification.

The court directed Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania's office to respond within four weeks. The court directed that the disqualified Congress MLAs should not be allowed to vote or participate in legislative proceedings until the petitions are disposed of. The court will consider the case again in the second week of May.

MLAs Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpa, Devinder Kumar Bhutto, Ravi Thakur and Chetanya Sharma were disqualified by the Speaker. Congress candidate Manu Abhishek Singhvi lost the Rajya Sabha elections after six MLAs of the party, where the Congress has a solid majority, and three independents supporting the government defected. With the disqualification of six members, the strength of the assembly was reduced from 68 to 62. The number of Congress MLAs has reduced from 40 to 34.