New Delhi: The Supreme Court will deliver Wednesday its crucial order on pleas of 15 rebel Congress-JD (S) MLAs seeking a direction for Karnataka Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to accept their resignations, which may seal the fate of 14-month-old HD Kumaraswamy government.
The apex court reserved its order after high-voltage arguments in which Kumaraswamy and the Speaker questioned its jurisdiction on entertaining the rebel Karnataka MLAs, who have alleged that they are being forced to act in a particular manner so as to save the coalition government that has lost majority.
HD Kumaraswamy and Kumar contended that the court cannot enter into the Speaker’s domain by asking him first to decide on the resignations of these MLAs and thereafter the applications seeking their disqualification.
However, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it was not restraining the Speaker from deciding the disqualification but was only asking him to ascertain whether they voluntarily resigned.
The bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, also said that the Supreme Court had given a ‘very high status’ to the Speaker while interpreting the anti-defection law decades ago and ‘probably that needs a re-look after so many years’.
The bench said there are rival submissions on the issue of resignation and disqualification of MLAs and ‘we will do the required balancing’.
The Supreme Court also questioned the contentions of the Speaker that the issue of disqualification has to be decided first by asking him what was he doing till July 10 when the MLAs had resigned July 6 itself.
“July 6, they (rebel MLAs) say they had given their resignations. The Speaker did not do anything until the Supreme Court’s order (of July 11),” the bench said.”What is the scope of the pending disqualification?” it added.
“Pursuant to the court’s order, they appeared (Karnataka MLAs) physically before the Speaker. Then why he (Speaker) did not decide it? He (Speaker) is saying that he will take time in deciding this. What does he mean by this?,” the bench asked.
PTI