The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled the petitions of 17 disqualified MLAs of Congress and JD (S). A bench of Justices NV Ramana, Justice Sanjiv Khanna Sanjiv Khanna, and Justice Krishna Murari Krishna Murari, said in its judgment that we uphold the decision of the then Speaker of the Legislative Assembly to disqualify the MLAs but disqualified MLAs can contest. The legislators challenged the then assembly speaker's decision to disqualify him.

In the last month, the Supreme Court reserved judgment in the case. The Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly had disqualified 17 rebel MLAs for six years before voting on the floor test proposal of the then Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on July 29. These rebel MLAs were absent during the floor test, causing the Congress-JDS coalition government to collapse. After this, the way for the BJP to come to power was cleared. These MLAs challenged the decision of the then Speaker of the Legislative Assembly in the Supreme Court.

By-elections have been announced for 15 assembly seats in Karnataka. According to the state's Chief Electoral Officer Sanjeev Kumar, these seats will go to polls on December 5, while the counting of votes will take place on December 9. Under the Election Commission's decision, the Model Code of Conduct became effective from November 11 in the state. The Commission had earlier announced a by-election for these seats on October 21 but postponed the decision as the matter was pending in the Supreme Court.