Oct 14- Speaker Ramesh Tawdkar has dismissed the petition filed by Dominic Noronha against 8 MLAs who defected from Congress and joined BJP in Sept 2022. Noronha said, he will study the 35 pages order and decide future course of action by taking the Think Tank helping him with the case into confidence. Noronha said, the defendants were relying on section 4(2) of the Tenth Schedule in their oral arguments stating that 2/3 of the Legislative Party can merge whereas his contention was that 2/3 of the overall party has to merge for the merger to be valid. “The merger of the original political party of a member of a House shall be deemed to have taken place if, and only if, not less than two-thirds of the members of the legislature party concerned have agreed to such merger,” states section 4(2) of the Tenth Schedule. Supreme Court has asked the Speaker to fast track the case.
