Panaji, Apr 22 (IANS): The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Monday issued notices to office of the state Assembly Speaker following a petition seeking the quashing of an order signing off on the merger of a breakaway group of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) into the BJP.

"For a merger of any political party, the procedure contemplated under the constitution of their party has to be followed which has not been done in the present case and therefore question of valid merger of any political party does not even arise," the petitioner Sadanand Vaingankar claimed in his plea before the court.

In its notice, the bench has directed the respondents to submit a written reply by April 30.

"The legislature party of a political party by itself had no authority or power to merge with any other political party, without the merger of its original political party," the petitioner added.

On March 27, two MGP MLAs, Manohar Ajgaonkar and Deepak Pauskar, split from the party and formed a separate legislative unit and merged it into the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The merger, as approved by acting Speaker Michael Lobo, reduced the strength of the MGP in the Goa Assembly to one MLA, Sudin Dhavalikar, who was dropped from the state cabinet by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, hours after the development.