india

Updated: Nov 05, 2019 11:38 IST

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hold a fresh round of arguments on the leak of a video in which Karnataka chief minister, BS Yediyurappa, purportedly says that rebel legislators in the state were “kept in Mumbai under the watch” of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief, Amit Shah.

A bench headed by Justice NV Ramana, however, told Congress leader and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal that they would look into it.

“Allow us to deliver the judgment,” the bench told the Congress and underlined that he had already covered all the relevant points exhaustively during arguments in the case.

Sibal had approached the top court with a viral video that shows Yediyurappa responding to opposition within the party to the BJP giving tickets to rebel MLAs from the Congress and Janata Dal Secular for the December 5 bypolls to 15 seats. In this tape, Yediyurappa is purportedly seen speaking about a BJP role in the resignation of the 17 rebel legislators that led to the fall of the HD Kumaraswamy government.

The top court had last month completed hearing arguments and reserved its verdict on petitions challenging the disqualification of 17 Karnataka MLAs before the trust vote of the HD Kumaraswamy government.

The Congress filed a new request after the viral video emerged to back up its allegation of a BJP role in the resignation of the rebel MLAs. The Speaker hadn’t accepted their resignation requests and disqualified them under the anti-defection law which was seen to bar them from contesting elections during the life of the current assembly.

The Kumaraswamy-led JD (S)-Congress coalition government lost the trust vote in July this year after 15 legislators of the two parties resigned in the first week of July, claiming that the ruling dispensation had failed to fulfil the aspirations of the people of the state. The BJP had then assumed the power with Yediyurappa as the chief minister.