The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a bunch of petitions seeking review of its verdict upholding the expulsion of 12 MPs in the wake of cash-for-query scam.
A five-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan did not find merit in the petition filed by six such MPs seeking review of the January 10 verdict.
The Bench, also comprising Justices C K Thakker, R V Raveendran, D K Jain and V S Sirpurkar, decided to dismiss the review petitions after holding chamber hearing.
The six expelled MPs Raja Ram Pal, Chhatrapal Singh Lodha, Suresh Chandel, Pradip Gandhi, and Anna Saheb M K Patil (all from BJP) and Ram Sewak Singh (Congress) had sought review of the judgment.
Others whose expulsion was upheld by the apex court were Y G Mahajan, Chandra Pratap Singh (both BJP), Narendra Kumar Kushwaha, Lal Chandra Kol (both BSP), Manoj Kumar (RJD) and Sakshi Maharaj (SP).
While upholding their expulsion, the apex court had said acts of Parliament are amenable to judicial scrutiny and that it was the final arbiter to interpret the Constitution.
The Constitution Bench in majority judgement of 4 to 1 had ruled that the court was the final judge of constitutionality of all acts purported to be done under the authority of the Constitution without transgressing into the doamin of Parliament.
The Court had upheld the expulsion of 12 MPs for their involvement in the cash-for-query scam in December 2005, saying that the action was to protect the dignity of Parliament before the people of the country. It was not "a capricious exercise," it had said.
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