The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear the plea of five more Karnataka rebel MLAs along with the petition of 10 legislators who are seeking a direction to Karnataka Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to accept their resignation, PTI reported. The top court listed the matter for hearing on Tuesday.
“We would like to hear the case of five rebel MLAs K Sudhakar, Roshan Baig, MTB Nagaraj, Muniratna, and Anand Singh, tomorrow [Tuesday] along with the main petition which is pending before us,” ANI quoted the top court as saying. The counsel of the dissident lawmakers, Mukul Rohatgi, on Monday mentioned an application for impleadment before the Supreme Court. The bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi noted Rohatgi’s submission to include the five in the pending petition, which is to be heard on Tuesday.
Since the beginning of July, 16 MLAs of the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) ruling coalition in Karnataka have resigned from the Assembly. After the Speaker refused to accept the resignations, 10 MLAs first approached the court. Five more rebel Congress MLAs moved the court on July 13. The previous day, the Supreme Court had ordered status quo on the resignations and the disqualification proceedings against them till it decides larger constitutional questions in the matter.
The Congresss-Janata Dal (Secular) government in Karnataka has been trying to win over the rebel legislators amid Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy’s announcement for a trust vote on Friday. If the MLAs do not return to their parties before the trust vote, the government will have the support of only 100 MLAs. The BJP will have the support of 107 MLAs.
Meanwhile, the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party decided to disrupt the Karnataka Assembly session on Monday if Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy does not go for the trust vote in order to prove his majority. “Since Kumaraswamy boasted on July 12 that he would seek trust vote to prove that he still has majority, we will request the Speaker to list it in the business as the only or main subject at the Business Advisory Committee meeting later in the day,” IANS quoted Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson G Madhusudana as saying.
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