'Independents were part of State BJP unit'

Appearing before a bench of Justices Altamas Kabir and Cyriac Joseph, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said, “They were all ministers in the BJP government and were adhering to the BJP whip.”

“They were attending the BJP legislature party meeting. They were following the policy of the BJP and were part of the Yeddyurappa government,” said Rohatgi, refuting arguments that the MLAs were Independents and part of a coalition government.

Citing various clauses of the anti-defection law, Rohatgi said the MLAs faced disqualification on two counts—joining a party and then leaving the party. He justified his arguments, submitting that the MLAs had said they were quitting the Yeddyurappa government in the interests of the BJP and if they were not part of the BJP, how were they going to guard the interest of the party.

The Speaker of the State Assembly had also said the MLAs were BJP members and on leaving the party they would be disqualified, the counsel said.  The Independents, in their application, had prayed to amend a petition to replace the sentence “the petitioners had never left the BJP” with “the petitioners had not joined the BJP at all”, contending that the original sentence was an “inadvertent mistake”.

On this, Rohtagi said there could not be repeated mistake in the petition. The arguments remained inconclusive and advocate P P Rao would counter the arguments on behalf of the Independents on Monday.

BJP’s chief whip D N Jeevaraju and C T Ravi had challenged the Karnataka High Court order that allowed the Independents to amend their petition and application for putting additional grounds.