SC reserves verdict in K’taka MLAs disqualification case

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday reserved its judgement in the case pertaining to 17 Karnataka rebel MLAs of Congress and JDS, who had moved the court challenging their disqualification by the then Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.
A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari, after three days of continuous hearing, asked the counsels to submit documents related with the matter.
A battery of senior advocates appeared in the case. Senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Devadatta Kamat and K Shashi Kiran Shetty represented Congress and JDS parties.
Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi, C A Sundaram, V V Giri, A K Ganguli, K V Vishwanathan appeared for the MLAs.
On Thursday, during the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing current Assembly Speaker, had submitted before the top court that the new Speaker is willing to examine the matter, whereas the rebel MLAs had contended that the previous Speaker, K R Ramesh Kumar, was not correct in not accepting their resignation, and later decided to disqualify them. This disqualification stripped the MLAs of their membership and also proved to be a hurdle in contesting elections again.
These MLAs contended that the Speaker overreached the mandate under the Constitution while taking a decision on their resignation. And then disqualified them against the law and the directions given by the top court.