Former Karnataka minister and MLC Adagur H. Vishwanath, who was hopeful of being inducted into the Yediyurappa cabinet in the upcoming cabinet expansion, has suffered a major setback.
A divisional bench of Karnataka High Court on Monday held that Vishwanath stands disqualified under the anti-defection law and hence cannot be inducted into the state cabinet.
Vishwanath, who was the JD(S) state president and Hunsur MLA, had resigned from his party and also given up his Assembly seat in July 2019, along with 16 other rebel MLAs, which led to the collapse of the Kumaraswamy-led Congress-JD(S) coalition government.
All the 17 rebel MLAs from the Congress and the JD(S) were disqualified by then Speaker Ramesh Kumar under the anti-defection law. However, the Supreme Court, on November 13, 2019, upheld the disqualification, but allowed the legislators to contest the bypolls held on December 5, 2019.
Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa kept his word by "rewarding" the rebels for their support in installing the BJP government in the state. Out of 14 rebels who won the bypolls on a BJP ticket, 13 were inducted into the cabinet, while Vishwanath and MTB Nagaraj (Hoskote) who lost the bypolls entered the Karnataka Legislative Council along with R. Shankar (Ranebennur), who was denied a ticket to contest the bypolls.
While Vishwanath was nominated to the Upper House by the governor, the other two were elected to the Council by the Legislative Assembly.
In the interim order passed on separate Public Interest Litigations (PILs), the bench comprising Chief Justice A. S. Oka and Justice Vishwajith Shetty stated that both the chief minister and the governor, as the Constitutional functionaries, need to consider the Constitutional provisions before inducting the MLC (Vishwanath) into the Council of ministers. The court also noted that no disqualification was operating in case of Nagaraj and Shankar as they had been duly elected to the Council.
The PILs filed by advocates Harish A.S., G. Mohan Kumar and S. Rukmangada had contended that the move to induct the trio into the Legislative Council was in contrary to Article 164 (1B) and 361(B) of the Indian Constitution, which state that a member of a House belonging to any political party who is disqualified for being a member of the House under paragraph 2 of the Tenth Schedule shall also be disqualified to hold any remunerative political post for duration of the period commencing from the date of his disqualification till the date on which the term of his office as such member would expire or till the date on which he contests an election to a House and is declared elected, whichever is earlier.
