Mumbai: Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar stated on Friday that further proceedings regarding the disqualification of Agriculture Minister Manikrao Kokate will begin only after the Legislative Secretariat receives a copy of the court order.
The Congress has called for Kokate’s case to be handled with the same urgency as that of Sunil Kedar, whose disqualification was swiftly processed by the Legislative Secretariat last year.
The Nashik District Court on Thursday sentenced Kokate and his brother Vijay Kokate to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs50,000 for submitting fake documents to obtain a government residence. However, the court later granted bail to Kokate.
Under Section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, any elected representative sentenced to two years or more is disqualified from the date of the verdict. Since Kokate has been sentenced to two years, he stands disqualified as an MLA. The Legislative Secretariat must issue a notification declaring his seat vacant. Only after this notification is issued does the disqualification of an MP or MLA become official.
In this entire process, the Assembly Speaker’s role will be crucial. This is because, in the case of Congress MLA Sunil Kedar, who was sentenced to five years in prison for the Nagpur Bank scam on December 22, 2023, the Legislative Secretariat issued a notification declaring his seat vacant the very next day, on December 23.
Congress state president Harshvardhan Sapkal questioned the differing treatment in disqualification cases, asking why there seems to be one rule for opposition leaders and another for others. He pointed out that when a court sentenced Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case, the Lok Sabha Secretariat immediately issued a notification canceling his membership. Sapkal questioned why the same prompt action was not being taken in the case of Manikrao Kokate.
