The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed two MLAs from Karnataka to withdraw their plea seeking a direction to Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to hold a floor test in the House, PTI reported.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi allowed the counsel for R Shankar and H Nagesh to withdraw the plea on the ground it had become infructuous after the floor test was held on Tuesday evening. Lawyers representing Ramesh Kumar and Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said they had no objection to the withdrawal of the petition.
The 14-month-old Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) government lost its majority after the trust vote. Soon after, Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy resigned as chief minister. The coalition received 99 votes, while the BJP secured 105 votes. Nagesh and Shankar were not present in the Assembly during the floor test.
On Wednesday, the top court had refused to pass an order on the plea until the senior counsels for both parties came for the hearing. The Supreme Court sought the presence of senior lawyers Mukul Rohatgi and AM Singhvi, who represented the MLAs and the Speaker, before allowing the plea to be withdrawn. “When you want an urgent listing, you come before us night, day or midnight,” the bench said on Thursday. “But when the court wants a counsel, he chooses not to appear.”
The MLAs had moved the top court, saying the state faced a political crisis after they withdrew their support to the coalition government and 16 legislators resigned from the Assembly. They filed the plea a day after Kumaraswamy and Karnataka state Congress chief Dinesh Gundu Rao moved the Supreme Court, accusing Governor Vajubhai Vala of interfering with Assembly proceedings during the debate on trust vote.
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