If the party chooses to remain absent inspite of notice to him he cannot be heard to say that enquiry was made in his absence and is, therefore, bad.

In Ram Krishna Verma and State of U.P., the Supreme Court held that if the party chooses to remain absent inspite of notice to him he cannot be heard to say that enquiry was made in his absence and is, therefore, bad. Even in the ordinary course of law, if a party chooses to be absent inspite of notice, evidence is recorded ex parte and party who chooses to remain absent cannot be heard to say that he had no opportunity to represent or of cross-examine the person whose statements were recorded by the Court. After all, what natural justice requires is that the party should have an opportunity of adducing all relevant evidence and that he should have an opportunity of evidence of his opponent being taken in his presence. Such an opportunity was given to the petitioner. It is not now open for him to complain about breach of natural justice. We do not see any ground to interfere with the Speaker's order in 

Bombay High Court

Narsingrao Gurunath Patil And ... vs Arun Gujarathi, Speaker And Ors. on 29 July, 2002

Equivalent citations: 2003 (1) BomCR 363

Author: A Shah

Bench: A Shah, R Desai

1. These writ petitions under Article 226 challenge the orders passed by the Speaker of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly on 13th June, 2002 disqualifying the petitioners from membership of the assembly under Article 191(2) read with Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India.
2. The elections to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly were held in September, 1999. The assembly is composed of 289 members of which 288 members are elected and 1 is nominated. The 1999 assembly elections did not give a clear mandate to any single political party. After the elections the position of the parties was as under:
Indian National Congress 75
Shiv sena 69
N.C.P. 61
B.J.P. 56

Print Page