With the announcement of bypoll schedule in Karnataka, disqualified MLAs found themselves pushed to the wall, even as the Supreme Court is all set to take up their petitions against the Speaker's decision that rejected their resignations and debarred them to contest elections in the current term of the Assembly.
A three-judge bench presided over by Justice N V Ramana would take up as many as nine separate petitions by 17 disqualified MLAs from Congress and JDS on Monday, September 23.
According to the lawyers connected to the matter, the former legislators are going to seek either permission to contest the bypolls or stay the elections scheduled on October 21 in their constituencies.
As the courts normally desist from staying the elections once announced by the Election Commission, the disqualified MLAs in all likelihood are going to press for a direction to allow them to fight the bypolls, pending the top court's decision on their plea against the Speaker's orders.
The disqualified MLAs are running against the time and any delay would mar their prospects to be legislators again in the current term.
State Congress president and JDS leaders who have been made respondents in the disqualified MLAs petitions in all probability would oppose the prayers since granting any such interim relief would come as a major victory for those whose dissidence led to the downfall of the coalition government.
The state government led by B S Yediyurappa would also keenly watch the development. The bypolls would anyway hold the key for its continuance.
On the last date of hearing, Justice Mohan M Shantanagoudar, who hailed from the Karnataka, had recused from the hearing the case.
The EC had on Saturday announced the bypolls in 15 out of 17 constituencies. In two constituencies, Raja Rajeshwari Nagar and Maski, elections petitions are pending in the Karnataka High Court.
Seventeen MLAs -- 14 from Congress and three from JDS, had faced actions under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution and stood disqualified by the Speaker on petitions filed their party leaders.
In their plea before the top court, they challenged the validity of the then Speaker's order that rejected their resignations and declared them as ineligible to be legislators again during the term of the 15th Karnataka Legislative Assembly.
They called the orders passed by then-Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar as "wholly illegal, arbitrary and malafide".