JOIN USSC upholds ex-Speaker's order disqualifying 17 MLAs
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld then Karnataka Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar's orders on disqualification of 17 rebel MLAs of Congress and JDS but set aside his decision to debar them to be legislators again during the current term of the Assembly.
A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari favoured for strengthening the law to check the undemocratic practice of horse trading and defections.
“There is a growing trend of the Speaker acting against the constitutional duty of being neutral. Further horse trading and corrupt practices associated with defection and change of loyalty for lure of office or wrong reasons have not abated. Thereby the citizens are denied stable governments,” the bench lamented.
On petitions filed by disqualified MLAs, 14 from Congress and three from JDS, the bench said we have to accept the Speaker's orders to the extent of disqualification, passed on the basis of “material and evidence”. Those facts cannot be reviewed and evaluated by this court since they have “voluntarily given up their membership of the party, thereby accruing disqualification in terms of the Tenth Schedule”.
The disqualified MLAs have questioned the then Speaker's orders saying he went on to disqualify them in July without deciding upon their resignations. They were particularly aggrieved with his order to disentitle them to contest bypolls, deferred from October 21 and re-scheduled on December 5, as 15 of them had already resigned.
“Although we are of the opinion that there was an error committed by the Speaker in deciding the disqualification petitions, the same does not rise to a level which requires us to quash the disqualification orders in their entirety,” the bench said.
The court, however, clarified that disqualification related back to the date when the act of defection takes place. “Factum and taint of disqualification does not vaporise by tendering a resignation letter to the Speaker. A pending or impending disqualification action does not become infructuous by submission of the resignation letter, when act(s) of disqualification have arisen prior to the member’s resignation letter,” the court said.
The court also held the Speaker does not have any explicit power to specify the period of disqualification under the Tenth Schedule or bar a member from contesting elections after disqualification until the end of the term of the Legislative Assembly.
“Nothing can be added to the grounds of disqualification based on convenience, equity, logic or perceived political intentions. This court has repeatedly held that a person cannot be barred from contesting elections if he is otherwise qualified,” Justice Ramana said in 109-page judgement authored by him on behalf of the bench.