Plea against OoP law: SC issues notice to Centre

A Bench consisting of Justice K G Balakrishnan, P P Naolekar and D K Jain issued the notice on a petition filed by Trinamool Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Dinesh Trivedi.

The petition was mentioned before the bench by senior counsel Harish Salve. Though the court initially said it would come up in the normal course of hearing, Salve intervened saying if something was not done the Election Commission, dealing with petitions against some MPs whose offices have been protected under the new law, would dispose them off. Taking note of his submission, the court issued notice to the Centre.

Trivedi has claimed the Act was “wholly arbitrary and discriminatory”. He alleged it “has been passed with retrospective effect solely to protect about 40 sitting MPs, who has been facing disqualification proceedings before the Election Commission”. He also slammed the law as having been passed in “undue haste” and without seriously addressing any of the concerns raised by the President while returning the Amendment Bill for reconsideration.