Supreme Court To Urgently Hear Congress’ Plea Challenging Parrikar’s Appointment As Goa CM

Supreme Court To Urgently Hear Congress’ Plea Challenging Parrikar’s Appointment As Goa CM
Manohar Parrikar, India’s defense minister (Photographer: Nicky Loh/Bloomberg)

The Congress on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging Goa Governor Mridula Sinha's decision to appoint Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manohar Parrikar as chief minister of the state.

The hurriedly filed petition late in the evening was mentioned at the residence of Chief Justice JS Kehar, who agreed to give an urgent hearing on Tuesday. A special bench will be constituted as the apex court is on Holi break for a week.

The petition filed by Goa Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Chandrakant Kavlekar has sought a stay on Parrikar's the swearing-in as chief minister. The petition has also sought quashing of the governor's decision to appoint Parrikar as the chief minister.

Also Read: Jaitley Gets Additional Charge Of Defence As Parrikar Named Goa Chief Minister

The petition, filed by advocate Devdutt Kamath, is likely to be argued by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and has made the Centre and Goa as the parties.

The Goa CLP leader has argued that the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the polls and under the constitutional convention, the governor was bound to invite the single largest party to form the government and give it the opportunity to prove its majority in a floor test.

The petition said the decision of the governor is blatantly unconstitutional, illegal, arbitrary and violative of the basic features of the Constitution. It added that the decision was hastily taken by the governor on Sunday. Further, the advocate said it was wrong on the part of the governor to invite the BJP-led alliance for government formation as there was no pre-poll alliance.

In the 40-member House, the Congress has 17 MLAs, followed by the BJP with 13, the MGP (3), the GFP (3), the NCP (1) and Independents (3).

Parrikar had on Sunday submitted evidence before Governor, the support of 13 MLAs of the BJP, 3 MLAs of the MGP, 3 of the Goa Forward Party and two Independent MLAs thus having a total strength of 21 MLAs in the 40-member assembly.

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