Sachin Pilot files caveat in SC to ensure no orders are passed on Rajasthan Speaker's plea

New Delhi: Rajasthan’s former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot on Wednesday filed a caveat in the Supreme Court to ensure that no orders are passed on Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi’s petition against Rajasthan High Court’s interim orders without hearing Pilot and his supporting MLAs. Earlier on Wednesday, Joshi approached the Supreme Court against the interim order passed by the Rajasthan High Court on the petition filed by Sachin Pilot and MLA from his camp against the disqualification notices issued against them. A caveat is a notice seeking that certain actions may not be taken without informing the person who gave the notice. Joshi, in his Special Leave Petition (SLP), said that the impugned interim order has interdicted and restrained the Speaker from calling of replies and conducting hearing of the disqualification proceedings pending against the respondents till 24 July. The Rajasthan High Court had on Tuesday asked Speaker Joshi to defer the proceedings pending before him on the disqualification notices issued to Pilot and 18 MLAs of his faction, and put off the verdict on the matter to till 24 July. Pilot and the 18 MLAs from his camp had approached the Rajasthan High Court over the disqualification notices, seeking the quashing and setting aside of the show-cause notices issued to them on 14 July by the Speaker of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly. Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi had sent notices to Pilot and 18 MLAs under the anti-defection law after chief’s whip application for their disqualification. MLAs were earlier asked to present before Assembly Speaker on 17 July, but the same was deferred in view of the hearing before the court. The development had come after Pilot and the lawmakers supporting him skipped Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meetings on 13 and 14 July. Rajasthan Congress is in turmoil after simmering differences between Pilot and Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot came out in the open. Pilot was, on 14 July, also sacked from the posts of Rajasthan deputy chief minister and state PCC president. Meanwhile, Gehlot has blamed the BJP for attempting to destabilise the state government by poaching MLAs.