The petitions of 17 'rebel' MLAs of the Congress and JD(S) in Karnataka challenging their disqualification from the Assembly will be heard on September 23.
The Supreme Court was originally scheduled to take up the petition of the 17 MLAs on Tuesday, but Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar recused himself from the bench hearing the case. Shantangoudar was part of the three-member bench, chaired by Justice N.V. Ramana and including Justice Ajay Rastogi. According to media reports, Shantanagoudar recused himself on the grounds that he was a native of Karnataka.
The 17 MLAs were disqualified by then Karnataka speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar in late July after the H.D. Kumaraswamy coalition government lost a vote of confidence.
The disqualification meant the MLAs would not be eligible to be ministers during the tenure of the current Karnataka Assembly, which will last till 2023. The 17 MLAs had resigned from the Assembly in varying intervals, plunging the Karnataka government into crisis and ultimately culminating in Kumaraswamy's resignation. If the Supreme Court were to uphold the resignations, bypolls would have to be held for the 17 constituencies.
Narayana Gowda who represents KR Pet, K. Gopalaiah who represents Mahalakshmi Layout and A.H. Vishwanath from Hunsur were the legislators disqualified from the JD(S). K. Sudhakar from Chikaballapur, M.T.B. Nagaraj from Hoskote, Srimanth Patil from Kagwad, Roshan Baig from Shivajinagar, Anand Singh from Vijayanagara, S.T. Somasekhar from Yeshwanthpur, Shivram Hebbar from Yellappur, Pratap Gowda Patil from Maski, Byrati Basavraj from KR Puram, Munirathna from RR Nagar, Ramesh Jarkiholi from Gokak and Mahesh Kumtahalli from Athani were those disqualified from the Congress side.
Independent MLA R. Shankar, who had merged his party KPJP with the Congress before becoming an MLA, also came under the axe.
