Shimla, April 10 (NationPress) In a significant ruling against the Congress-led Himachal Pradesh administration, the High Court has instructed the legislative Assembly to disburse pension and arrears to two former Congress MLAs—Rajinder Rana and Ravi Thakur—who subsequently aligned with the BJP.

Rana and Thakur, who were elected from Sujanpur and Lahaul-Spiti respectively, faced disqualification for breaching the party whip during the February 2024 Rajya Sabha voting, where Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi was defeated by BJP’s Harsh Mahajan. Although they contested again from their original constituencies as BJP candidates, both faced electoral defeat.

During the Rajya Sabha election, Mahajan and Singhvi garnered 34 votes each in the 68-member Assembly, which included three Independent legislators believed to have supported the BJP. Mahajan was ultimately declared the winner through a draw, following the cross-voting of six Congress MLAs.

Further, six Congress seats—including those from Dharamsala, Lahaul-Spiti, Sujanpur, Barsar, Gagret, and Kutlehar—became vacant after the party disqualified its sitting MLAs, which included Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur, and Chetanya Sharma.

In response to the High Court's judgment on April 7, BJP spokesperson Ashish Sharma remarked that the court's ruling underscored that laws should not be retroactively applied to penalize individuals, adhering instead to constitutional principles.

The High Court mandated that the eligible former MLAs receive their pension and arrears within a month, warning that failure to comply would incur interest at a rate of six percent per annum.

Sharma characterized the verdict as a “slap on the face of the government,” asserting that the Congress administration sought to manipulate legislation for political vendetta. He emphasized that the court clarified that laws should serve future purposes, not political vendettas.

He also noted that the amendment introduced by the state in 2024, which aimed to revoke pension benefits for disqualified MLAs under the Tenth Schedule (Anti-Defection Law), was fundamentally flawed and politically motivated. Eventually, the government had to retract that legislation and propose a revised Bill in 2026, which applied only to members elected from the 14th legislative Assembly onwards.

“This admission indicates that the previous action was unconstitutional and driven by personal vendetta,” Sharma added.

The BJP claimed that for nearly two years, these former legislators endured unwarranted financial and mental distress due to the withholding of their rightful pension benefits, which ultimately compelled them to seek judicial intervention.