The Supreme Court observed that legislators cannot be unseated by courts, where as, it is the presiding officer of the house who is the appropriate authority for disqualifying a legislator.

These observations were made by a bench consisting of Chief Justice K. G. Balakrishnan, Justice Makandey Katju and Justice P. Sathasivam, while hearing a public interest lawsuit by Birendrah Singh, in which he sought disqualification of Congress parliamentarian Moni Kumar Subba from Tezpur in Assam.

Singh argued that Subba belongs to Nepal, from where he fled after committing a crime and is not an Indian citizen.

On this plea the bench observed, "The courts cannot unseat legislators," and asked the petitioner to approach the Lok Sabha Speaker under the provisions of the Article
103 of the constitution.

In this case the petitioner's counsel Ambojh Kumar Sinha had made plea to the apex court to disqualify Subba.

The bench asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to clarify on its action into the probe into Subba's nationality and citizenship.

It was alleged by the petitioner that Subba's original name is Mani Raj Limboo.

CBI while replying to the Apex Court, regarding the nationality of Subba, said that the parliamentarian's birth certificate was not genuine.

On behalf of Subba, senior counsel, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, argued that the Nepalese government had written letters to the CBI saying "Limboo" and "Subba" were two different persons and required the court's direction to produce the Nepalese government's letters in the court.

On this, Sinha argued that as CBI itself had found Subba's nationality to be suspicious India thus did not require a certificate from the neighbouring government to certify that he is an Indian national.

Sinha further said that even if the court did not want to unseat Subba, it must direct CBI to initiate criminal prosecution of the MP for filing forged documents in the court to prove his Indian citizenship.

Additional Solicitor General, Gopal Subramaniam, then sought time from the court to examine another affidavit filed by Subba.