NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave 24 hours to the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh led by Kamal Nath to respond to a petition filed by former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan seeking immediate floor test on the ground that the government had been reduced to a minority after the resignation of 22 MLAs.It did not take much persuasion from senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi for a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta to order, “Issue notice. In view of the urgency of the situation, the notice is made returnable at 10.30 am on March 18, 2020.” It allowed the notice to be served through email and posted further hearing for Wednesday.The MP assembly Speaker had accepted the resignation of six of the 22 MLAs and the MP Congress legislature party (MPCLP) swiftly moved the SC in the afternoon alleging that BJP had used money and muscle power to abduct the MLAs and kept them in captivity outside the state. It said if the floor test was to be held, it should be done after by-elections to the 22 seats which fell vacant upon the resignation of MLAs.Before the MPCLP moved the SC, senior advocate Maninder Singh , appearing for the 16 MLAs, requested the bench to make them a party to the petition filed by Chouhan and other BJP MLAs. Singh said the MLAs had resigned of their own volition, being peeved by the Kamal Nath government’s failure to serve the people. The 16 MLAs requested the SC to direct the Speaker to accept their resignations immediately. The bench ordered their petition to be served on the Kamal Nath government.The 16 MLAs said, “None of the 22 MLAs either came out of Bengaluru nor did they appear before the Speaker. However, the Speaker for reasons best known to him accepted the resignations of only six MLAs on March 14.” While requesting the SC to direct the Speaker to accept their resignations forthwith, they said, “Floor test cannot be withheld under the pretext of the 16 MLAs not being available.”The MPCLP petition, settled by senior advocate Devadatt Kamat , alleged that BJP had kept the 16 MLAs in complete isolation in Bengaluru to bring down the democratically elected government in MP by misusing the official machinery of the Union and the Karnataka government.Accusing the governor of pre-judging the situation and directing floor test by concluding that the Kamal Nath government had lost majority in the House without taking into account forcibly taking away of 16 MLAs, MPCLP raised a constitutional question — whether a trust vote ought to be held in the absence of any representation of the electorate who had voted in support of the incumbent government.“In the instant case, as 22 MLAs, who represent 22 constituencies constituting almost 10% of the total strength of the House, have purportedly resigned, the electorate of such constituencies are completely unrepresented. In these circumstances, a trust vote, if held, will be a complete sham and would be antithetical to the principle of representative democracy which is a basic feature of the Constitution. A floor test in such a situation ought to be held only after by-elections to the seats falling vacant as a result of resignations,” it said.