The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the former Karnataka Speaker’s order disqualifying 17 rebel Congress and JD(S) legislators. However, the apex court struck down the Speaker order, which barred the disqualified MLAs from contesting any election until the end of the present Karnataka Assembly term.
This is a win for the Congress and JD(S) rebels as they will now be allowed to contest the bye-elections that are to be held in 15 segments on December 5.
While upholding the Speaker's disqualification order, a three-judge bench of Justices Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari said that resignation of MLAs does not take away the power of the Speaker to disqualify them. "It is clear that Speaker in exercise of powers under Constitution has this power. Rule of law not to be confused with existence of the same," Justice Ramana said.
However, while ruling on the Speaker's order barring them from contesting elections until the end of the Assembly term, the Supreme Court stated that the Speaker is not empowered to disqualify till the end of term.
The Supreme Court also stated that it does not appreciate the manner in which the petitioners approached it directly without first going to the High Court. “A party challenging disqualification is required to first approach the HC. This court will have the benefit of HC judgement if dispute comes here. Even though this court has jurisdiction,” Justice Ramana said.
The apex court also stated that it will not be going into the issue of the resignations submitted by the MLAs. “Since we are deciding disqualification, resignation not needed to be gone into. As such there is no doubt that disqualification has nothing to do with resignation. Resignation does not take away power of disqualification of Speaker. Articles 71(1) b and 164(1)b are meant to discourage horse trading. Resignation does not make it redundant,” the SC said.
On July 28, then Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar had on July 28, disqualified 17 MLAs ST Somashekhar (Yeshwanthpura), BC Patil (Hirekerur), Shivaram Hebbar (Yellapur), Prathapgouda Patil (Maski), K Gopalaiah (Mahalakshmi Layout), AH Vishwanath (Hunasuru), Narayana Gowda (Krishanarajapete), Munirathna Naidu (RR Nagar), Roshan Baig (Shivajinagar), Byrathi Basavaraj (KR Puram), MTB Nagaraj (Hoskote), K Sudhakar (Chikkaballapura), Shrimant Patil (Kagwad), Anand Singh (Vijayanagara), Ramesh Jarkiholi (Gokak), Mahesh Kumathall (Athani) and R Shankar (Ranebennur).
On August 1, 14 of the 17 rebel legislators from the Congress and JD(S) moved the Supreme Court against their disqualification. The 14 rebel MLAs, include Congress leaders – Ramesh Jarkiholi, Pratapgouda Patil, BC Patil, Srimath Patil, ST Somashekar, Byrathi Basavaraj, Dr K Sudhakar, MTB Nagaraj, Shivaram Hebbar, Roshan Baig and Anand Singh – and three JD(S) leaders – AH Vishwanath, K Gopalaiah and Narayana Gowda.
They had requested that the court ask for the records of the disqualification proceedings before the then Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar. They had sought that an appropriate writ, order or direction be issued by the Supreme Court to quash and set aside the Speaker’s order dated July 28, 2019, which rejected their resignations and disqualified them. The rebels stated that they had tendered their resignations on July 6, prior to the Congress filing disqualification petitions against them, which was on July 12.
Ramesh Kumar disqualified 17 MLAs, belonging to the Congress and JD(S), rejecting the resignations submitted by them. The Speaker also barred them from contesting in bye-elections until the end of the present Assembly term. Defying their respective party whips, those MLAs were absent from the House on July 23 when former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy put the confidence motion to vote. The rebellion allowed the BJP to come to power in Karnataka.
The disqualified MLAs moved the Supreme Court challenging the Speaker's decision claiming it was in violation of the apex court’s orders and that it was illegal and unconstitutional. The rebel MLAs said that the Speaker was overreaching the mandate of the Constitution by rejecting the resignations and disqualifying them.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Devadatta Kamat and K Shashi Kiran Shetty represented the Congress and JD(S) parties, senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi, CA Sundaram, VV Giri, AK Ganguli and KV Vishwanathan appeared for the disqualified rebels.
The bye-elections for 15 constituencies were initially slated to be held on October 21. However, the Election Commissioner agreed to defer the polls and conduct the bye-elections on December 5 after the disqualified MLAs petitioned the Supreme Court over the matter. Bye-elections to RR Nagar and Maski are yet to be announced.
A three-judge bench of Justices NV Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna, and Krishna Murari delivered the verdict on Wednesday. The Supreme Court upheld former Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar’s disqualification order. However, the court struck down the portion.