TMC’s Mukul Roy Disqualified as MLA Under Anti-Defection Law

GG News Bureau
Kolkata, 13th Nov: The Calcutta High Court on Thursday disqualified senior Trinamool leader Mukul Roy from his post as an MLA under the anti-defection law, after finding him guilty of switching parties post-election. Roy, who won the Krishnanagar North seat in 2021 on a BJP ticket, had defected to the Trinamool Congress soon after the polls.

A division bench of Justices Debangsu Basak and Md. Shabbar Rashidi pronounced the verdict, calling Speaker Biman Banerjee’s earlier decision to let Roy continue as MLA “perverse” and legally untenable. The court also nullified Roy’s nomination as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), ruling that he could no longer hold any assembly position.

“The membership of the MLAs switching parties should be gone immediately,” said Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, who had filed the petition against Roy’s defection. He hailed the verdict as a “victory of the Constitution” and accused the Speaker of acting with “partisan bias” in previous defection cases.

“This historic judgment has preserved the sanctity of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution,” Adhikari said, adding that the ruling exposed the Speaker’s mishandling of defection disputes.

Speaker Biman Banerjee, reacting cautiously, called it a “controversial topic”, stating that he would examine the court order before taking further action.

Mukul Roy, once a close aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, was among the earliest Trinamool defectors to join the BJP ahead of the 2021 West Bengal elections. However, after the Trinamool Congress retained power with a sweeping majority, Roy rejoined the party within months but did not resign from his MLA post.

With the assembly elections due early next year, the Krishnanagar North seat is expected to remain vacant as a bypoll appears unlikely.