The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Friday dismissed the plea of Samajwadi Party leader and MLC Lal Bihari Yadav challenging a notification issued by the principal secretary of Legislative Council that derecognised him as the leader of opposition in the UP Legislative Council.
The notification was issued on July 7, 2022. A bench of Justice A R Masoodi and Justice OP Shukla passed the order on the writ petition filed by Yadav.
Writing the judgement for the bench, Justice Shukla observed, “Yadav does not have an inalienable right to be appointed or to continue as Leader of Opposition. “The Uttar Pradesh State Legislature (Members’ Emoluments and Pension) Act, 1980 does not prescribe any mechanism for recognising a leader of opposition.”
Shukla added, “The Chairman of the Legislative Council was not bound to be guided only with the criteria of recognising the leader of an opposition party, which has the greatest numerical strength. “The rule provides for discretion of the Chairman to recognise and/or de-recognise a Leader of Opposition.”
Opposing the petition on behalf of the Legislative Council and its chairman, advocate Gaurav Mehrotra relied on rule 234 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business Rules, 1956, and argued that the chairman has fair and judicious exercise of discretion in derecognising Yadav as leader of opposition and it is in conformity to the precedent and practice of the Legislative Council.
According to the petition, Yadav was elected an MLC in 2020 and was designated as leader of opposition on May 27, 2020.
But, the UP Vidhan Parishad secretariat derecognised him as the leader of opposition in the council, when SP’s strength in the council fell short of 10 — the minimum for the largest opposition party to get the post. The petitioner had pleaded that the decision of the principal secretary was “illegal and arbitrary.”
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