High Court reserves verdict on Congress MLAs merger to People's Party of Arunachal

ITANAGAR: The Gauhati high court on Wednesday reserved its verdict after hearing a case filed by Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) regarding the merger of 43 Congress legislators to the People's Party of Arunachal (PPA) on September 16 last.
The single-bench court of justice B Baruah heard both the parties, informed senior Supreme Court advocate KC Mittal, who is representing the case on behalf of former APCC president Padi Richo.While Congress was represented by Mittal and advocate Ravi Shankar, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi and advocate general of Arunachal Pradesh Niloy Dutta argued the case on behalf of the respondents.
On November 23 last year, Richo had filed a writ petition in the high court challenging the validity of 43 Indian National Congress (INC) MLAs who merged with PPA. The court had then issued a notice for consideration on the interim relief for stay on the speaker's order by which all the MLAs have been shown as PPA members and the bulletin dated issued by the secretary of the legislative assembly notifying them as PPA members.