New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Karnataka Speaker what stopped him from deciding whether to accept or reject the resignations tendered by the MLAs of the JD-S-Congress coalition on July 6.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi sought a clear response from senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi representing Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar.
"You were silent on the resignations till the MLAs came to the Supreme Court... Why?" Chief Justice Gogoi asked.
Singhvi said in response that the Speaker filed an affidavit in the apex court explaining what had happened.
Chief Justice Gogoi shot back asking why wasn't a decision taken when the MLAs went to the Speaker with their resignations, to which Singhvi replied that it was a written communication, and the Speaker was not available on that day.
"But the decision was communicated to him on July 6," the court added.
Singhvi said the MLAs first met the Speaker personally on July 11, under the rules of the Assembly they are supposed to make personal presentation before the Speaker.
"The first condition of a genuine resignation tendered by MLA is that he has to be personally present before the Speaker," argued Singhvi.
The court taking a sharp jibe on this line of argument said the provision does not negate resigning by letter, but if the MLA has made a personal visit to the Speaker then he has to decide on the resignation immediately.
"Why it (decision) didn't happen on July 11?" the court further queried.
Referring to the Karnataka Speaker, the Chief Justice said that he cannot question the jurisdiction power of this court.
"The court to your benefit had ordered a floor test (referring to the last year floor test), appointed a protem Speaker during a midnight hearing. The exercise of jurisdiction of our powers depend only on self-restraint," he added.
On this question of the apex court whether the Speaker is challenging the power the court, Singhvi replied: "Suppose a Speaker goes crazy, then Your Lordships can intervene." He emphasized the Speaker was in no way questioning the court's jurisdiction.
Before Singhvi, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi representing the rebel MLAs had argued before the court.
The Chief Justice asked Rohtagi: "We cannot say, in which way, the Speaker should decide resignation or disqualification of MLAs. We cannot fetter him. Although, the important question, is there any constitutional obligation for the Speaker to decide resignation before disqualification or to club his decision on both?"
Karnataka Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar had urged the Supreme Court Tuesday to modify its earlier order directing him to maintain status quo in the ongoing political crisis in the state even as the rebel Congress-JD(S) MLAs accused him of acting in a partisan manner by not deciding on their resignations.
A M Singhvi, appearing for the speaker, told a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi that he would decide on both disqualification and resignation of the rebel MLAs by Wednesday but the court should modify its earlier order asking him to maintain status quo.
Mukul Rohtagi, appearing for the rebel MLAs, told the apex court that the speaker can be directed to decide on the resignation of these MLAs by today itself and he can later take a call on the disqualification proceedings.
Ten rebel MLAs of the ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition had said in the Supreme Court that their resignations "have to be accepted" as there is no other way to deal with the present political crisis and contended that the Speaker has to see only if the resignation is voluntary or not.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi first dealt with the case of 10 lawmakers who approached the court first.
Rohatgi told the court that the Speaker has to only see if the resignation is voluntary or not.
"Resignation has to be accepted, there is no other way to deal with it," Rohatgi told the court.
"It is my fundamental right to do whatever I want to do and cannot be bound due to non-acceptance of resignation by speaker," submitted Rohatgi.
There is vote of confidence in assembly and the rebel MLAs may be forced to follow whip despite resigning, he said.
Rohatgi told the court that the 10 MLAs resigned on July 6 and disqualification proceedings against two lawmakers were pending.
"When was the disqualification proceedings filed against rest eight MLAs," the top court asked, to which Rohatgi responded that disqualification proceedings started against them on July 10.
The rebel MLAs, who have moved the apex court alleging that the Speaker was not accepting their resignations, are Pratap Gouda Patil, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Byrati Basavaraj, B C Patil, S T Somashekhar, Arbail Shivaram Hebbar, Mahesh Kumathalli, K Gopalaiah, A H Vishwanath and 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 prove that the rebel MLAs conspired with BJP, he 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 accept 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 top court had on Friday restrained the Speaker from taking any decision till July 16 on the resignation and disqualification of the rebel MLAs.
The top court 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.
Rebel MLA Roshan Baig detained at airport
Rebel Congress legislator and former state minister R Roshan Baig was detained at the Bengaluru airport and prevented from taking off in a chartered aircraft, police said. The move was made a day before the SC hearing of the petition submitted by five rebel legislators including Baig seeking its directive to the state Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar to accept his resignation forthwith.
"Baig was detained for questioning at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) when he was about to take off in a private aircraft to an unconfirmed destination from Bengaluru," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) B R Ravikantha Gowda said in a statement here on late Monday night.
Baig, an eight-time legislator and former minister in the previous Congress government, resigned on July 10 from the Shivajinagar assembly segment in the city centre.
"We will verify if Baig's sudden plan to leave Bengaluru has anything to do with the recent release of a video in Youtube by the multi-crore Ponzi scheme prime accused Mansoor Ali Khan," Gowda said.
Gowda heads the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to probe the Ponzi scheme in which about thousands of investors were allegedly cheated.
The Congress also suspended Baig on June 19 for alleged anti-party activities, including criticism of the party's state leaders after the recent Lok Sabha elections in which the party was routed in the southern state.
Incidentally, documents (crew and passenger manifest) of the private aircraft operator Finnacle Air Ltd police shared shows it was to fly to Pune from Bengaluru with Baig and another passenger – N R Santhosh, private secretary to opposition BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa.
Sensing trouble and seeing the police in large presence at the airport waiting for Baig's arrival, Santhosh left quietly as his name was struck off in the manifest.
Commenting on the dramatic development, Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy tweeted: "I was told that on seeing the SIT, Santhosh ran away while the police apprehended Baig."
Accusing the BJP of engineering the defection of the 16 rebel legislators from the ruling Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) allies to destabilise his 13-month-old coalition government, the Chief Minister said in another tweet: "It's shame that @BJPKarnataka is helping a former minister to escape, who is facing a probe in the IMA (Ponzi) case."
"This clearly shows #BJP's direct involvement in destabilising the government through horse trading," Kumaraswamy added.
Refuting the Chief Minister's charge, BJP's state unit tweeted: "CM @hd_kumaraswamy is using the state machinery to save his government now. Baig was given time till July 19 to appear before the SIT. This shows the how the state government was blackmailing treating its own MLAs by using the state-run institutions."
The Speaker on Monday asked the Chief Minister to move the trust vote on July 18 to prove he has majority in the Assembly to save his government, which has been reduced to minority after the rebels retired and two Independents withdrew support to it.
(With inputs from PTI & IANS)
