SC judge recuses to hear disqualified Karnataka MLAs

SC now to hear on Sep 23

The much-awaited hearing on the fate of 17 disqualified MLAs could not take place in Supreme Court on Tuesday as Justice Mohan M Shantanagoudar, one of the judges, recused from the matter.

"I am not participating in this case. My conscience does not allow me to take up the matter," he said, sitting in a bench presided over by Justice NV Ramana and also comprising Justice Ajay Rastogi.

Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Kapil Sibal appearing for rival parties said they don't have any problem but Justice Shantanagoudar maintained his stance.

On this, Justice Ramana ordered for posting the matter before the CJI for placing before a different combination bench on Sept. 23.

All 17 disqualified MLAs of Karnataka, had challenged the validity of the then Speaker's order that rejected their resignations and declared them as ineligible to be legislators again for the on-going term of 15th Legislative Assembly.

After filing their petitions in August, the petitioners – belonging to Congress and JD(S) – have remained unsuccessful, despite making several attempts to get the matters listed for hearing.

Notably, the rebellion by these MLAs had caused the fall of the JD(S)-Congress government and subsequent installing of BJP in power in Karnataka.

As a result, all of them were disqualified by then-Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar in July.

In the one-joint petition, Pratap Gouda Patil, BC Patil, A S Hebbar, ST Somashekar, BA Basavaraja and Muniratna contended the Speaker's orders passed on July 28 was “wholly illegal, arbitrary and malafide” as he arbitrary rejected their resignations holding those as not voluntary and genuine.

They contended they had resigned on July 6 but Speaker Kumar went on to disqualify them on the basis of a “wholly misconceived” petition filed by the Congress party on July 10.

Three JD(S) members AH Vishwanath, K Gopalaiah and KC Narayanagowda also filed their separate writ petition questioning the validity of the Speaker's order to disqualify them.

Similarly other disqualified MLAs – Roshan Baig, Anand Singh, MTB Nagaraj, Dr K Sudhakar, Shrimanth B Patil and R Shankar – also urged the court to quash the orders passed by the Speaker.

Two rebel Congress leaders Ramesh Jarkhiholi and Mahesh Kumathalli had also questioned the validity of the order by the Speaker.