New Delhi: Ten rebel Congress-Janata Dal Secular legislators moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday alleging state Assembly speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar was not accepting their resignation deliberately.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi took note of the submission of senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and assured him that it will see whether their petition can be listed for an urgent hearing on Thursday.
"We will see," the bench, which also comprised justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, said when Rohatgi was asking for an urgent hearing saying "time is the essence" in the matter.
Rohatgi said the lawmakers have already resigned and wanted to contest fresh elections.
“That the present petition is being filed by members of the Legislative Assembly who have resigned from the assembly and yet their resignations have not been accepted by the speaker of the house in a mala fide manner," the petition reads.
The petitioners have prayed for the speaker to accept the resignations of the petitioners as tendered and to restrain the speaker from proceeding with the applications for disqualification.
The 10 rebel MLAs who have filed the application in the apex court 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.
A total of 14 legislators from Congress and JD(S) have resigned since 1 July and another two independent MLAs have withdrawn support to the H.D. Kumaraswamy-led coalition government that is staring at the possibility of a collapse if the resignations are accepted.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is holding demonstrations in Bengaluru demanding Kumaraswamy step down, as the coalition does not have the numbers to remain in power. The BJP feigned ignorance of the resignation drama, but the coalition holds the saffron party solely responsible for the whole episode.
