The Supreme Court on Friday stayed a Calcutta High Court verdict from November that disqualified Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy from the West Bengal Assembly for defecting from the Bharatiya Janata Party, reported Bar and Bench.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said that the electronic evidence against Roy, which showed him attending a Trinamool Congress press conference, has yet to be proven.
“See there is AI [artificial intelligence] etc, we do not know whose face etc is there,” the court said. “Electronic evidence has to be tested.”
The court passed its interim directions on a petition filed by Mukul Roy’s son, Subhranshu Roy, Live Law reported.
It also directed Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly, and BJP MLA Ambika Roy to respond to the matter within four weeks, Bar and Bench reported.
In June 2021, Mukul Roy defected to the Trinamool Congress months after winning the Krishnanagar Uttar Assembly constituency on a BJP ticket.
Mukul Roy was one of the earliest members of the Trinamool Congress when it was founded in 1997, but joined the BJP in 2017. However, soon after the Trinamool Congress returned to power in the state in May 2021, he rejoined the party.
The BJP has been demanding Mukul Roy’s disqualification as a legislator since he was made the chairman of the public accounts committee in July 2021.
In November, the Calcutta High Court disqualified Mukul Roy from the West Bengal Assembly and set aside his nomination as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
The court also set aside an earlier order by Speaker Biman Banerjee, where he had refused to act on a disqualification petition filed by the BJP.
The court had said he incurred disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which states that a member of the House shall be disqualified if, after getting elected, they give up the membership of their party or join another political party.
Adhikari and Ambika Roy had approached the High Court challenging Banerjee’s decision, claiming that there was a press conference to prove Roy had defected.
In November, the High Court highlighted that Mukul Roy had “not denied the contents of the press conference,” Bar and Bench reported.
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