Source – indianexpress.com<\/p>\n
The Patna High Court on Monday dismissed two Public Interest Litigations (PILs) that challenged the formation of the new government after\u00a0Janata Dal\u00a0(United) \u00a0chief\u00a0Nitish Kumar\u00a0called off his party\u2019s alliance with the\u00a0Rashtriya Janata Dal\u00a0(RJD) and the Congress to ally with the BJP.\u00a0\u00a0After hearing all parties, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice A K Upadhyay dismissed the two PILs, saying no intervention of the court is required after a floor test in the state Assembly.<\/p>\n
While one PIL was filed by RJD MLAs Saroj Yadav and Chandan Verma, the second one was filed by Jitendra Kumar, a\u00a0Samajwadi Party\u00a0member. On Friday last, the Patna High Court had adjourned the matter for Monday.\u00a0The petitions state that\u00a0the mandate Nitish Kumar got as the leader of the Grand Alliance or the Mahagathbandhan in the 2015 state assembly elections was against the BJP and was for a period of five years.<\/p>\n
Terming the formation of the new government as \u201cunconstitutional\u201d, the petitions stated that the RJD being the party with maximum number of seats should have been called first to form the government. However, after Nitish Kumar\u2019s resignation from the CM\u2019s post, the party was not given any such opportunity and Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi instead invited Nitish Kumar to form government, bypassing the constitutional provisions set in this regard, the PILs state further.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, senior JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav finally broke his silence over Nitish Kumar splitting the grand alliance and joining hands with the BJP to form an alliance government, describing the turn of events as \u201cunfortunate as the people\u2019s mandate had been violated\u201d. Speaking to reporters outside Parliament on Monday, Yadav said: \u201cI don\u2019t agree with the decision in Bihar, it\u2019s unfortunate. The mandate by the people was not for this.\u201d<\/p>\n