Goa government convenes special session of state Assembly on Feb 28

Panaji: Goa government has conveyed a one day special session of state Legislative Assembly on February 28 which would be addressed by Governor Mridula Sinha.

This would be the last session of the present BJP-led government.

The polls for electing the new state Assembly members were held on February 4. The counting of votes is scheduled on March 11.

"The Governor has summoned a special session of the Legislative Assembly on February 28 which will start at 11 AM. The session would be addressed by Governor Mridula Sinha," state Legislature Secretary Nilkant Subhedar told PTI.

He said during the session, condolences will be paid to some prominent persons who died recently.

Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar said the session is being convened to avoid any constitutional issues.

The Bombay High Court had recently directed the Goa government to inform it of its stand in view of the Supreme Court judgement making it mandatory to convene session of the Legislative Assembly within six months of its last sitting.

The high court had asked the Goa government to come forward with its stand on February 27.

The direction came after the court took up the hearing of a petition filed by social activist Aires Rodrigues seeking directions to the Goa Government to comply with the mandate of Article 174 of the Constitution by either summoning a session or dissolving the Goa Legislative Assembly.

Drawing the court's attention that the last session of the Goa Legislative Assembly was on August 31, 2016, Rodrigues pointed out that the Law department had in November last year moved a file for summoning the session and on January 6, 2017 had also opined that the Assembly needed to be dissolved.

He pleaded that the state government had just been sitting on the advice given by the Law department.
The special session is expected to be attended by 32 legislators as out of the total 40 members, eight resigned in the run-up to the state polls.