The Supreme Court will decide on the resignation of 15 rebel legislators on Wednesday before the power-related trial of the 14-month-old Congress-JDS coalition government led by HD Kumaraswamy in Karnataka. The hearing was concluded in the top court on Tuesday. In the petition, rebel legislators have demanded that Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar be ordered to accept his resignation.
Presenting arguments before the bench of Chief Justice Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, the counsel of rebel legislators Mukul Rohatgi demanded retaining interim order from the court, in which the Speaker has made the status quo on the issue of the resignations and ineligibility of rebel legislators Was said to keep. At the same time, he also demanded rebel legislators to give exemption from whips issued by the ruling coalition in the assembly.
Advocate Rajiv Dhawan, appearing for Chief Minister Kumaraswamy, said that the Supreme Court had no right to issue two interim orders. Earlier, the top court asked the speaker to decide on the resignations and disqualifications of rebel legislators and then ordered to maintain the status quo. Speaker can not be compelled to make a decision in this matter in a timely manner. The rebel legislators are destabilizing the government as a group and the court should not have considered their petitions.
Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing on behalf of the speaker, told the apex court that last year when the order of power testing was ordered during the hearing at midnight and BS Yeddyurappa was invited to form the government, then the court has given the Karnataka Assembly Speaker No instructions were issued for. He said that Speaker will decide the disqualification and resignation of rebel MLAs by Wednesday, but the court should amend the order before the status quo.
Mukul Rohatgi argued that the Speaker can not hold the resignation of these MLAs, and by doing so he is working in partisan manner. On this, Singhvi said, "How can the speaker be called to decide in a special way? Such orders should not be issued even for the lower courts. "The valid resignation should be filed before the speaker, while the legislators appeared before him on July 11 five days after filing his resignation in office. Rohatgi said that the speaker kept the resignations pending for disqualification of the legislators and it is not wrong to resign to avoid disqualification.
The bench asked Mukul Rohatgi whether the speaker is constitutionally bound to decide on the disqualification of the MLAs whose process has been started after resignation? On this, Rohatgi said that the rules immediately ask for the decision. How can the speaker keep it pending? He told the court that the state government has come in a minority and the Speaker is not accepting the resignation and rebel MLAs are trying to force them to vote for the government on the trust vote.
Karnataka Legislative Assembly Chairman K R Ramesh Kumar said on Tuesday that he is working according to the constitution and is discharging his duties. In a conversation with reporters in Kolar district, he said that after the Supreme Court's decision and after studying it, he will give some answers. He said, 'I am not a person who is going to challenge … I will only discharge my duty. Everyone will have to wait till tomorrow (Wednesday).'
