Will you apologise to LG, Delhi HC asks suspended BJP MLAs
New Delhi (PTI): The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked seven BJP MLAs, suspended from the Delhi Assembly for interrupting the lieutenant governor's address, if they were willing to apologise to him.
Justice Subramonium Prasad asked the senior counsel appearing for the suspended legislators to take instructions on this aspect after the senior lawyer for the assembly said a similar approach was adopted in the Supreme Court in the case of MP Raghav Chadha.
Appearing for the assembly, senior advocate Sudhir Nandrajog said the matter is not political and it involves the dignity of the office of the LG.
"I spoke to the speaker. He also suggested the route followed by the Supreme Court in Raghav Chadha's case. If members were to come and meet the speaker and apologise to the LG, the whole thing could be put through," he said.
Senior advocate Jayant Mehta, appearing for the MLAs, said there was no difficulty in apologising to the LG.
The court asked the petitioners' counsel to come back in the post-lunch session with instructions.
The seven BJP MLAs - Mohan Singh Bisht, Ajay Mahawar, O P Sharma, Abhay Verma, Anil Bajpai, Jitender Mahajan and Vijender Gupta -- had approached the high court on Monday challenging their indefinite suspension from the Assembly for interrupting the Lieutenant Governor's address.
They said their suspension till the conclusion of proceedings before the privileges committee was in violation of the applicable rules and the MLAs were consequently unable to attend the ongoing budget session.
The BJP MLAs had interrupted Lt Governor (LG) VK Saxena multiple times during his address on February 15 as he highlighted the achievements of the AAP government. They sought to attack the Arvind Kejriwal government on a range of issues.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
