What's the urgency? SC asks Karnataka disqualified MLAs

"It will come up in due course. What is the urgency?," the Supreme Court on Thursday asked Karnataka's disqualified MLAs who wanted an early hearing on their petitions against the then Speaker's order.

Senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi, V Giri and Anupam Lal Das mentioned the matter. They sought hearing on the plea by 17 disqualified MLAs from Karnataka.

They said the matter once listed for September 11 got deleted. They said it should not be deleted again.

A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Mohan M Shantanagoudar and Ajay Rastogi refused to give any specific date but said that the matter would come up in due course.

The wait for Karnataka's disqualified MLAs for a hearing in the top court is apparently getting longer as their writ petitions against the then Speaker's decision have so far not been taken up for consideration.

Those were earlier scheduled to come up for consideration on September 11, but got deleted from the list

It was due to these disqualified MLAs whose rebellion led to the fall of the JDS-Congress government and subsequent installing of BJP in power in Karnataka. All of them were disqualified by then Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar, who also declared them as ineligible to be legislators again for the term of the 15 Karnataka Legislative Assembly.

All 17 disqualified MLAs had filed the writ petitions.

In one-joint petition, Pratap Gouda Patil, BC Patil, A S Hebbar, S T Somashekar, B A 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 JDS members A H 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 Jharkhiholi and Mahesh Kumathalli had also questioned the validity of the order by the Speaker.