The West Bengal Assembly Speaker has rejected a petition seeking the disqualification of 10 MLAs, including Ritabrata Banerjee, over alleged defection, citing procedural defects in the filing and its supporting documents. The order does not decide whether the defection allegations are valid and allows the petitioner to submit a fresh petition in accordance with the law and prescribed rules.
The petition was filed by Trinamool Congress legislator Sovandeb Chattopadhyay under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which deals with disqualification on grounds of defection. The 10 legislators named in the petition include Ritabrata Banerjee, Akhruzzaman, Arup Roy and Sabina Yasmin.
According to the order issued by West Bengal Assembly Speaker Rathindranath Basu, the main petitions were examined, but the documents attached to them had not been scrutinised in the same manner as the petitions themselves. The Members of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on Ground of Defection) rules require every page of the attached documents to be signed and examined through the same prescribed process as the main petition.
The Speaker observed that merely signing the annexures was not sufficient to meet the legal requirement. Since the mandatory procedure had not been followed, the petitions were found not to be compliant with the rules and were rejected.
The decision came before a deadline set by the Supreme Court. The Speaker was required to decide the matter by 8 October. The petitions had remained pending before the Assembly, after the legislators were accused of leaving the Trinamool Congress following the 2026 election and opposing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Their election on the Trinamool Congress symbol was cited as the basis for the disqualification request.
The Speaker also decided that the 10 petitions would be heard together, although separate decisions would be issued for each petition. During the hearing, the legal team representing Sabina Yasmin argued that the petitions could be heard together while being decided individually. The Speaker rejected the objection to a combined hearing.
Sabina Yasmin’s lawyer, Sumitabh Chakraborty, said the order did not address the substance of the defection allegations. The Speaker has clarified that rejection of the petitions was based on procedural non-compliance and should not be understood as a finding that the allegations were either true or false.
The order also states that the applicable 1986 rules do not provide for returning a procedurally defective petition to the applicant for correction. The petitions were therefore rejected in their existing form, while Chattopadhyay was given the liberty to file fresh petitions after completing the required forms and procedures. Any further decision will depend on the submission and examination of those new petitions.
