A single judge bench of Justice Satish Agnihotri dismissed the petition citing that it was irrelevant.
"The 12 BJP MLAs had left the BJP and after forming Chhattisgarh Vikas Party, merged it with Congress on December 20, 2001. Following this, Nand Kumar Sai had submitted a petition to then Speaker of Chhattisgarh State Assembly seeking disqualification of the MLAs who joined Congress quitting their party, saying it was against rule of the anti-defection law," petitioner's lawyer Ramakant Mishra said.
Ajit Jogi-led Congress government was in power in 2001. "In his petition, Sai had also blamed then Congress Chief Minister Jogi in this connection," Mishra said.
When state Assembly had disqualified his petition, Sai further approached the High Court in 2003, he added.
After the initial hearing, the court issued showcause notices to Jogi and 12 MLAs, including Ganguram Baghel, Tarun Chatterjee, Haridas Bharadwaj, Dr Sakrajit Nayak, Vikram Bhagat, Madan Singh Daharia, Paresh Bagbehera, Prem Singh Sidar, Lokendra Yadav, Sohan Lal, Shyama Dhruv and Ratnamala Devi, he said.
However, only three-- Bharadwaj, Nayak and Bagbehera-- out of these twelve are presently MLAs.
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On Thursday this week, the court had reserved the verdict after hearing both the sides.
While delivering the verdict today, Justice Agnihotri said enough time had been spent in the case as two Assembly elections had been held in the state after that incident.
It is irrelevant to consider it, he quoted the judge as saying.