Rebel Karanataka MLAs arrive to meet speaker at Vidhana Soudha

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday put in limbo till Tuesday the twin proceedings before the Karnataka assembly Speaker — by 10 rebel Congress and JD(S) MLAs seeking acceptance of their resignations, and the disqualification proceedings initiated against them for defying party directions.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, which had requested the Speaker on Thursday take a decision on the resignations in the course of the day, was forced to acknowledge constitutional issues raised by the Speaker through senior advocates A M Singhvi, Rajeev Dhavan and Devadatt Kamat.

While denying the charge of rebel MLAs that he had made himself scarce on July 6 so as not to receive the resignations, the Speaker narrated in detail what transpired last week and brought to the court’s notice that disqualification proceedings were pending against all 10 MLAs. Of these MLAs, two have been facing such proceedings since February.

When the MLAs, through senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi , cited the Speaker’s statements in electronic media and accused him of defying the SC’s authority and committing contempt by not taking a decision on the resignations, the CJI-led bench asked, “Is the Speaker challenging the Supreme Court’s authority? Is it the stand of the Speaker that the Supreme Court should keep its hands off this issue?”

Singhvi answered the CJI’s queries in the negative and composed a nuanced reply on the Speaker’s behalf. “Speaker is a constitutional authority and the SC must consider, in the light of its earlier decisions, whether a direction, as contained in Thursday’s order, could have been issued. It should also be examined whether the SC could fix a timeframe for the Speaker to conclude either resignation or disqualification proceedings,” he said.

Having grabbed the court’s attention by posing constitutional questions, Singhvi explained that Parliament, while effecting an amendment to the Tenth Schedule, had clearly intended to deal with the menace of en bloc defection by giving precedence to defection proceedings over resignations.

Singhvi said resignation and disqualification proceedings entailed very different consequences. He said if an MLA got disqualified, then he could not be a minister in the new dispensation which assumed power by toppling the existing one, without getting re-elected. Though Singhvi did not mention this, an MLA who resigns can be inducted as a minister and be elected a member of either the state assembly or the council in six months.

“That is the reason why disqualification proceedings get precedence over resignation proceedings before the Speaker,” Singhvi said. He said prior to accepting resignations, the Speaker was bound by rules to inquiry and ascertain whether the resignations were voluntary or were being tendered because of payment of money or through coercion. This inquiry by its very nature would take time, he said.

Appearing for chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan said the SC should not get into a political thicket as the 10 rebel MLAs were raising no substantial question of law but narrating political developments in a coalition government.

The SC took note of the substantial questions of law of constitutional importance raised by the Speaker and said it would deal with them after detailed arguments on Tuesday. Till then, it said there would be a status quo with regard to proceedings relating to resignations and disqualification proceedings before the Speaker.

