New Delhi: The 15 dissident Karnataka MLAs belonging to the ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition on Tuesday sought to be exempted from attending the state Assembly on Thursday when the vote on a motion expressing trust in chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s government will take place, as the Supreme Court reserved its order on Tuesday on their plea seeking a direction to the Speaker to accept their resignations.
Reserving the order to be pronounced on Wednesday at 10.30 am, a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose brushed aside the argument that the court had no right to interfere in the exercise of discretionary powers by the Speaker on what he should prioritise for a decision — the resignation or disqualification, or take both together.
“Where is the issue of jurisdiction? There is no inflexible rule to exercise our jurisdiction. This court ordered a floor test within 24 hours, appointed a pro-tem speaker. The exercise of jurisdiction of this court depends on how much restraint we observe from case to case”, CJI Gogoi said.
However, the court clarified it was not saying how the Speaker should exercise his discretionary powers in deciding the resignation or petition seeking their disqualification. The question before the court was whether Speaker should decide first on the resignation by 15 MLAs and the disqualification later, or whether on disqualification first and resignation afterwards, or decide both of them together.
While the rebel MLAs insisted their resignation being prior to the Congress’ petition seeking their disqualification must be decided first, Speaker Ramesh Kumar and chief minister Kumaraswamy wanted the disqualification of the dissident MLAs to be decided first.
Coupled with this was the argument by Speaker Ramesh Kumar and chief minister Kumaraswamy that the court had no jurisdiction to interfere with the exercise of discretionary powers by the Speaker, the rebel MLAs contended that the Supreme Court had unfettered powers to issue directions to the Speaker to decide on resignation first and disqualification later.
The court made clear its disappointment over the Speaker not living up to the high status accorded to his office by the court as the adjudicating authority under the 10th Schedule dealing with defection cases.
CJI Gogoi said that the position to which the Speakers were elevated needs rethinking. “A very high status was given to the Speaker. But in the last 30-35 years there has been a decline. A serious rethink is required on this elevated position of Speaker”, CJI Gogoi said.
However, differing with the CJI , senior counsel Abhishek “Manu” Singhvi, appearing for the CM, said: “The court exercising discretion at an interim stage amongst co-equal organs (of the State) would be destructive of the State.”
Addressing the issue of whether the Speaker should take up the resignations first and disqualification later, senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan said: “This isn’t about if the chicken came first or the egg. It is more like if the chicken came first or the rooster. Whether the resignation came first or the disqualification isn’t important. The Constitution doesn’t say what has to be decided first.”
Appearing for the rebel MLAs, senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi asserted that it was not within the province of the Speaker’s powers to go into the motives of the MLAs who have submitted their resignations but to accept them immediately as they have personally handed it over to him. “Nobody can force me to continue as MLA and discharge my function. I don’t want to defect but resign and go back to the people”, Mr Rohatgi told the bench. “I can’t be forced to sit with a particular group, and vote in a particular way, which I don’t want to do. The Speaker is infringing on my right to do what I want to do.”
The Supreme Court was initially moved by 10 rebel MLAs, that included Pratap Gouda Patil, Ramesh Jarkhiholi, Byrati Basavaraj, B.C. Patil, S.T. Somashekhar, Arbail Sivaram Hebbar, Mahesh Kumathalli, B.K. Gopalaiah, H.D. Vishwanath and Narayan Gowda — all belonging to the Congress.
Later, on July 13, another five MLAs, including Anand Singh, K. Sudhakar, N. Nagaraju, Munirathna, and Roshan Baig, approached the court, claiming to be identically placed as the earlier 10 MLAs.
