New Delhi: Lakshadweep MP Mohammed Faizal was disqualified from the Lok Sabha on Wednesday for the second time this year after the Kerala High Court passed a verdict refusing to suspend his conviction in a murder case on Tuesday.
The NCP lawmaker was sentenced to a decade of rigorous imprisonment for attempting to murder P Salih in January.
“In view of order dated 03.10.2023 of the Hon'ble High Court of Kerala, Shri Mohammed Faizal P.P., Member of Lok Sabha representing the Lakshadweep Parliamentary Constituency of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, stands disqualified from the membership of Lok Sabha from the date of his conviction, i.e. 11th January, 2023," a Lok Sabha Secretariat bulletin stated.
A sessions court in Lakshadweep had sentenced Faizal and three others on January 11 for attempting to kill Mohammed Salih, son-in-law of the late union minister P M Sayeed, during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Declining to suspend the Lakshadweep MP's conviction on Tuesday the High Court, however, suspended the 10-year sentence given to Faizal and three others in the case.
The Kerala High Court had suspended his conviction and sentence after Faizal moved the court on January 25. The Lakshadweep administration had then challenged the High Court decision before the Supreme Court.
The suspension verdict was later set aside with the apex court terming the High Court decision ‘erroneous’ on August 22.
The top court had temporarily protected his status as MP for three weeks and stressed the need to avert a vacuum in the representation of the Lakshadweep Lok Sabha constituency.
It had also remanded the matter back to the HC and sought a fresh decision on the lawmaker's application seeking a stay of his conviction within this period.