Supreme Court: The 3-judge bench of Ranjan Gogoi, JJ and Aniruddha Bose and Deepak Gupta, JJ has ordered a status quo until Tuesday on a plea filed by 10 dissident MLAs of Congress and JD(S) seeking a direction to the Assembly Speaker to accept their resignation and not proceed with the applications for their disqualification. The Court will again hear the matter on Tuesday.
The order on status quo was given after hearing counsels Mukul Rohtagi for the rebel MLAs and Abhishek Manu Singhvi for Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar.
The bench had on Thursday directed the Speaker to meet the rebel MLAs who were asked to give their resignations afresh in person. The speaker met them and took their resignations but did not take any decision saying he has to follow procedures and satisfy himself whether they were genuine and voluntary.
Rohatgi argued that the Speaker was answerable to the court, except under “certain circumstances”.
“He may not respond under certain sections and provisions, he is entitled to exemption,”
Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy’s counsel Rajeev Dhavan objected to the submissions of the rebel MLAs that the Speaker acted in a mala fide manner. Singhvi contended that the rebel MLAs’ intention in tendering resignation was “something different, and it is to avoid disqualification”.
(Source: ANI)