- Senior Trinamool leader Mukul Roy has been disqualified as MLA under the anti-defection law
- The court has set aside the Speaker's decision allowing Roy to retain his post and his PAC chairmanship
- Roy's Krishnanagar North assembly seat has become vacant but a bye-election is unlikely
Senior Trinamool leader Mukul Roy - who won his assembly seat in 2021 on a BJP ticket - has been disqualified from his post by the Calcutta High Court. A division bench comprising Justices Debangsu Basak and Md. Shabbar Rashidi ordered the disqualification under the anti-defection law, citing his change of camp after the BJP challenged his post as an MLA.
The court has also dismissed the decision by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Biman Banerjee allowing him to retain the post, calling it "perverse". It also set aside Roy's nomination as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
Mukul Roy was the MLA of Krishnanagar North, which has now become vacant. But with the assembly election due early next year, a by-election on the seat is unlikely.
"We welcome the order of the Calcutta High Court that cited the anti-defection law. It is the victory of the constitution," said Leader of the Opposition, the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari.
"The membership of the MLAs switching parties should be gone immediately. In 2020, I resigned from the ministry and MLA posts before I joined the BJP. Mamata Banerjee and her Speaker Biman Banerjee allowed nearly 50 MLAs into their party without following the constitution," he added.
In a landmark judgment and the first of its kind in West Bengal (possibly also in India), a Constitutional Court being the Division Bench of the Hon'ble High Court at Calcutta consisting of the Hon'ble Justice Debangsu Basak and the Hon'ble Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi has...
— Suvendu Adhikari (@SuvenduWB) November 13, 2025
"This historic judgment has been delivered in a hotly contested writ petition filed by me in my capacity of being the Leader of Opposition," read his post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
"The Hon'ble Court vide its Judgment while preserving sanctity of the Constitution especially the Tenth Schedule also has left no second thought about the partisan attitude of the Hon'ble Speaker in deciding defection cases. I wholeheartedly welcome this historic judgment," he added.
"This is controversial topic," said Speaker Biman Banerjee. "We have to see the order then see what to do. We have got some protection. Let's see what's there in order," he added.
Mukul Roy - one of the first leaders of Trinamool Congress to switch sides ahead of the 2021 assembly election, had contested on a BJP ticket from Krishnanagar North. But later, when the Trinamool retained power in the state with a sweeping majority, he switched back within months.
He, however, did not resign as an MLA. When the BJP complained to the Speaker, he maintained that Roy was a member of the BJP.
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