New Delhi: Drawing the Karnataka political crisis to some degree of conclusion, Supreme Court on Thursday asked 10 rebel Congress-JD(S) MLAs to submit their resignations to Assembly speaker KR Ramesh Kumar by 6 PM today.
In addition, the apex court ordered DGP of Karnataka to provide protection to all the rebel MLAs. The top court has now adjourned the hearing on the matter for July 12.
The disgruntled MLAs had filed an appeal on Wednesday against Assembly speaker KR Ramesh Kumar for ‘abandoning his constitutional duty’ and ‘deliberately delaying acceptance’ of their resignations.
Karnataka Assembly speaker on Tuesday had refused to accept the resignations of rebel Congress and JD(S) MLAs, saying eight of them were not in the prescribed format and five others needed to explain why their action did not fall under the purview of the anti-defection law.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and sought an urgent hearing on Wednesday.
The petition filed by MLAs claims that the actions of the Speaker “are vitiated by mala fide as evident in his actions”.
According to simple arithmetic, the strength of the House being 224, the government headed by HD Kumaraswamy has lost its majority (112 seats) seats as the resignations have brought down its strength to 103 seats.
“Notwithstanding the same and fearing that the Chief Minister may have to tender resignation for want of confidence of the House, the Speaker is acting in a partisan manner to frustrate the will of the House,” the petitioners had contended.
The 10 MLAs in the petition made two specific prayers before the court — direct the Speaker to accept the resignations and restrain the Speaker from proceeding with the application on disqualification of the MLAs.
The petitioners have also requested the court to pass an order which it may deem fit in connection with the facts and circumstances of the present case.