Ten rebel MLAs of the ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition in Karnataka on Tuesday said in the Supreme Court that their resignations “have to be accepted” as there was no other way to deal with the present political crisis. They contended that the Speaker has to see only if the resignations were voluntary or not.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi is first dealing with the case of 10 lawmakers who approached the court first.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the rebel MLAs, told the court that the Speaker had to only see if the resignations were voluntary or not. “Resignations have to be accepted, there is no other way to deal with it,” he said.
“It is my fundamental right to do whatever I want to do and cannot be bound due to non-acceptance of resignation by speaker,” he submitted.
If there was vote of confidence in the Assembly, the rebel MLAs may be forced to follow whip despite resigning, he said.
Mr. Rohatgi told the court that the 10 MLAs resigned on July 6 and disqualification proceedings against two lawmakers were pending.
“When was the disqualification proceedings filed against rest eight MLAs,” the court asked, to which Mr. Rohatgi responded that disqualification proceedings started against them on July 10.
The 10 rebel MLAs moved the apex court alleging that the Speaker was not accepting their resignations.
They are: Pratap Gouda Patil, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Byrati Basavaraj, B C Patil, S T Somashekhar, Arbail Shivaram Hebbar, Mahesh Kumathalli, K Gopalaiah, A H Vishwanath and Narayana Gowda.
Disqualification proceeding was a mini-trial under the Constitution’s 10th Schedule, Mr. Rohatgi said, adding that resignations were different and their acceptance was based on single criterion — whether they were voluntary or not.
There was nothing to show the rebel MLAs conspired with the BJP, he said.
The apex court, which was dealing with the plea of the MLAs on July 12, will now be hearing five more lawmakers who have similarly sought that Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar accept their resignations as well.
The five MLAs — Anand Singh, K Sudhakar, N Nagaraj, Munirathna and Roshan Baig — mentioned their application before a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta on Monday seeking impleadment as parties to the pending plea on which it was ordered that the Speaker would not take any decision till Tuesday on the resignations and disqualifications.
The top court on Friday restrained the Speaker from taking any decision till July 16 on the resignation and disqualification of the rebel MLAs.
The court had said an incidental question that would arise in the matter was the kind and extent of the directions that should be issued by a constitutional court to another constitutional functionary, which in the present case happened to be the Speaker.
