SC to hear plea of six disqualified Himachal MLAs against their disqualification on March 12 

These Congress rebels, who had voted in favour of BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha polls on February 27, later “abstained” from voting on the Budget. Senior Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi had lost the Rajya Sabha election owing to the cross-voting.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on March 12 a plea by six rebel Congress MLAs, who had cross-voted in the recent Rajya Sabha polls in Himachal Pradesh, against their disqualification.

The Speaker of Himachal Pradesh Assembly, Kuldeep Singh Pathania, had disqualified the six on the Congress' plea for "defying" the party whip that required them to be present in the House and vote for the budget.

A Bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna, Dipankar Datta and Prashant Kumar Mishra will hear on March 12 the plea against the February 29 decision of the Speaker.

The rebel lawmakers in their plea before the top court have made Mr. Pathania as well as state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harsh Vardhan Chauhan a party.

These Congress rebels, who had voted in favour of BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha polls on February 27, later "abstained" from voting on the Budget. Senior Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi had lost the Rajya Sabha election owing to the cross-voting.

The disqualified MLAs are Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur and Chetanya Sharma.

Following their disqualification, the effective strength of the House has gone down from 68 to 62, while the number of Congress MLAs has shrunk from 40 to 34.