Supreme Court stays Karnataka HC order declaring JD S MLA's election as void

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Karnataka High Court's March 30 order, declaring as void election of D C Gowrishankaraswamy, JD(S) MLA from Tumkur rural constituency on a plea by an unsuccessful BJP candidate.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and J K Maheshwari issued notice to B Suresh Gowda on whose election petition the High Court had passed the order.

After hearing senior advocate K K Venugopal, and advocates A V Nishanth and Balaji Srinivasan for Gowrishankaraswamy and senior advocate Ranjit Kumar for Gowda, the top court stayed the order by which the election result declared on May 15, 2018 was termed as void for allegedly adopting corrupt practices under the Representation of People Act.

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The court admitted the appeal for consideration in July.

With the development, the High court's order would not not come in the way for the privileges, allowances, salary etc paid to the petitioner in the course of the 15th legislative assembly.

"If the returned candidate gets elected, he is not entitled to vote on the floor of the house or participate in any of the committees without obtaining appropriate directions from this court," his lawyer Srinivasan said.

The appellant here denied that he was neither a member nor the office bearer of KMSS and he is not having any relationship with it. He was accused of distributing 16,000 fake policy insurance bonds to people who were 32 years old. He won by a margin of 5640 votes in 2018 to become an MLA from Tumkur rural in the Karnataka Assembly.

Fresh Karnataka Assembly elections are scheduled to be held on May 10 and results will be declared on May 13.