In a big relief to the rebel Congress-JDS MLAs, the Supreme Court pronounced its order in Karnataka MLAs resignation case stating that they cannot be compelled to participate in proceedings of the state assembly till the speaker decides on their resignations.
Reportedly, the three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi delivered an interim order stating that it was imperative to maintain Constitutional balance in the judgement.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the speaker has to decide on resignation of 15 MLAs in a time-bound manner and he cannot compel the rebel Congress-JDS lawmakers to participate in proceedings of Assembly till the Speaker rules on their resignation. The top court directed Karnataka speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to decide on the resignations of the rebel Congress-JDS MLAs under Article 190 in a time-bound manner.
The Supreme Court has also ruled that the rebel MLAs have the liberty to decide on whether they wished to attend the trust vote which has been scheduled to take place on Thursday, July 18.
Interestingly, the Supreme Court has refused to decide the issue of disqualification of the rebel Congress-JDS MLAs under the Tenth Schedule. The Supreme Court also said that the other larger legal questions need to be decided and deserved an answer only at a later stage.
The HD Kumaraswamy led Congress-JDS coalition government has now pushed into a corner with leaving them only option to seek trust vote on Thursday to prove their majority in the assembly. With 15 rebel Congress-JDS MLAs getting a huge relief from the Supreme Court, the Congress-JDS government will be short of numbers to prove their majority in the assembly.