A Supreme Court bench on Friday ordered the Karnataka Assembly Speaker not to take any action on the resignations of 10 rebel MLAs until it heard the matter again on July 16.
The Supreme Court was hearing pleas of 10 Karnataka MLAs who had resigned from the Congress and JD(S) in the past week. The resignation of the 10 MLAs, in addition to six other legislators, triggered a political crisis in the state. The MLAs claim Karnataka Assembly Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar had not acted on their resignations. The MLAs had petitioned the Supreme Court on Thursday, which directed them to appear before Kumar in person on Thursday itself.
The Supreme Court ruled that “status quo” be maintained on the resignations of the MLAs and no disqualification proceedings be initiated until “larger Constitutional issues” related to the case are decided by the apex court. The Supreme Court noted the pleas of the MLAs had raised the question of “whether Constitutional court can issue direction to speaker to decide on resignations”.
The Supreme Court bench was led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and also comprised Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose.
Arguing for the MLAs, lawyer Mukul Rohtagi claimed the speaker was in contempt of court if he could not decide on the resignations. According to Bar and Bench, Rohtagi said the objective of the speaker was to “keep resignations pending and then disqualify them so that resignations become infructuous”.
Appearing for the Karnataka Assembly speaker, senior lawyer and Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi cited the 1974 Amendment to prove that the speaker could conduct an inquiry to ascertain the resignations were genuine. Singhvi also claimed the MLAs had submitted resignations to avoid disqualification. Singhvi was quoted by Bar and Bench as saying “two of the MLAs resigned after disqualification proceedings commenced. Eight of them sent resignations before disqualification proceedings but did not appear in person with resignation letter”.
Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, who appeared on behalf of Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, claimed the MLAs had sought an urgent hearing on the grounds the Karnataka government was in a minority and there was maladministration in the state. Dhavan declared the speaker was responsible for making inquiry to ascertain that “resignation is voluntary and genuine”.
In a related development, a Congress activist filed a fresh plea in the Supreme Court, claiming the resignations of the rebel MLAs from the JD(S) and Congress was tantamount to defection.
Anil Chacko Joseph, a Youth Congress leader, said that a resignation had the same effect as defecting from a party and that the MLAs were "bought or persuaded to resign by payment of enormous sums of money". The Supreme Court allowed Chacko to be heard as intervenor in the matter.
Meanwhile, the Monsoon Session of the Karnataka Assembly commenced on Friday amid the ongoing political crisis. All three political parties—Congress, BJP and JD(S)—had issued whips, directing their MLAs to be present in the house.
