New Delhi: The Supreme Court will pass the order in Karnataka rebel MLAs case on Wednesday at 10:30 am. Karnataka Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday saying he would decide on both disqualification and resignation of the rebel MLAs by Wednesday and requested the apex court to modify its earlier order directing him to maintain status quo on the matter.
Mukul Rohatgi now countering argument of Speaker that no fundamental right is violated
- Rohatgi- My right to resign and do what I want is being violated.
Dr. Rajeev Dhavan to argue now on behalf of Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy.
- Dhavan- Political thicket doctrine does not say to Your Lordships, "we can enter any political thicket we like".
- Dhavan- Speaker has to take notice of the fact that 15 MLAs are hunting in a pack.
- Dhavan- Strategy of the other side has been clearly disclosed. They have clearly said once resignations are accepted they will later become Ministers.
- Dhavan- They flew to Bombay when they could have met the Speaker
Mukul Rohatgi intervenes
- Rohatgi- Never said rebel MLAs want to be ministers.
- "CJI asked can they become Ministers and you said yes", Dhavan rephrasing his argument.
- Dhavan- Your Lordships do not have jurisdiction. The two interim orders passed last week was in excess of this Court's jurisdiction,
- Dhavan- Supreme Court Rules are clear - that it will not entertain a petition under Article 32 unless there is a fundamental right involved.
- Dhavan- Article 190 should be read along with the Tenth scheduke.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi is dealing with the case of 10 lawmakers who approached the court first.
- Bench rose for lunch, hearing to resume at 2 pm
Senior advocate, Mukul Rohatgi read Article 192 of the Indian Constitution.
- Rohatgi- The provision was made to secure the MLA and not to use it against him.
- Rohatgi- Article 191 (2) has nothing to do with resignation.
- CJI- What was the ground for rejection of resignation?
- Rohatgi- There is nothing to show that the petitioners have left their party and met someone from another party and are going to join that party. This is an attempt to scuttle the resignation and to show that the speaker will decide the resignation.
- CJI- Is there a constitutional obligation on the speaker to decide the disqualification subsequent to submission of resignation?
- Rohatgi- By virtue of the fact by Article 190, if the MLA submits his resignation to the speaker at his own wish, the speaker cannot force him against his wish submits. It is absurd to go with this fashion.
- Rohatgi- There could be several reasons for a person to resign, the fallacy in their argument is that the reason for the MLA’s resignation is to join the other party, Rohatgi told CJI.
- Rohatgi- The speaker should be asked to decide the resignation first within 24hrs and the rest about disqualification he can decide later.
Abhishek Singhvi appearing for the speaker submitted whatever Mr Rohatgi said is factually incorrect because disqualification relates back to the original act as held by the Constitutional bench in Rana’s case. Abhishek Singhvi cited (2004)8 SCC 747.
- Singhvi- It is not a race against time who gave first. Your lordship is not the decider of resignation as suggested by Mr Rohatgi.
- Singhvi- Every enquiry commences after personal presence. All cases of physical presentation of resignation, in this case, is on 11th July.
- Singhvi- Out of 15 MLA’s, 11 of them submitted the resignation personally on 11th and the rest have not submitted till now.
- CJI- Pursuant to the Court's order, the MLA’s were physically present, then why didn’t the speaker decide the resignation?
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CJI- Neither should resignation be used to achieve a political purpose nor should the tenth schedule be invoked for political gains.
Singhvi submitted that the Court does not have the jurisdiction to direct the speaker on resignation or disqualification to which the CJI interjected that as far as the jurisdiction of this court is concerned it is up to us to exercise restraint on our jurisdiction.
The 10 rebel MLAs moved the apex court alleging that the Speaker was not accepting their resignations.
They are:
- Pratap Gouda Patil
- Ramesh Jarkiholi
- Byrati Basavaraj
- B C Patil
- S T Somashekhar
- Arbail Shivaram Hebbar
- Mahesh Kumathalli
- K Gopalaiah
- A H Vishwanath
- Narayana Gowda
Disqualification proceeding is mini-trial under the Constitution's 10th Schedule, Rohatgi said, adding that resignation is different and its acceptance is based on single criterion -- it is voluntary or not.
There is nothing to show the rebel MLAs conspired with BJP, the senior advocate said.
The apex court, which was dealing with the plea of 10 rebel MLAs on July 12, will now be hearing five more lawmakers who have sought identical relief that Karnataka Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar accepts their resignations as well.
The five MLAs -- Anand Singh, K Sudhakar, N Nagaraj, Munirathna and Roshan Baig -- mentioned their application before a bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Deepak Gupta Monday seeking impleadment as parties to the pending plea on which it was ordered that the speaker would not take any decision till Tuesday on the resignations and disqualifications.
The apex court had on Friday restrained the Speaker from taking any decision till July 16 on the resignation and disqualification of the rebel MLAs.
It had said an incidental question that would arise in the matter is the kind and extent of the directions that should be issued by a constitutional court to another constitutional functionary, which in the present case happens to be the Speaker of the Assembly.
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