JOIN USThe ruckus in the Legislative Council on December 15 was “unexpected” and it “escalated too soon to be mitigated”, Legislative Council secretary K R Mahalakshmi has said in her response to a show-cause notice against her.
Council chairperson Pratapchandra Shetty had given her the notice asking for a detailed report on the turn of events in the Upper House on that day, which led to sine die adjournment.
In the notice, Shetty had also questioned as to why she failed to intervene and stop the deputy chairperson from occupying the chairperson’s seat in his absence.
Responding to the notice, Mahalakshmi has said the actions of the deputy chairperson Dharmegowda were unexpected and in spite of her trying to intervene, things went out of hand too quickly.
“I had photocopies of Article 184 of the Indian Constitution and Section 10 (A) of the Council regulations which I wanted to hand over to the Deputy Chairman. However, he suddenly went and occupied the chairperson’s seat. This was unexpected for me. Even as I was approaching the seat to hand over the copy of the regulations, he was engaged in getting files from his PA. I kept the regulations on his table and came back. By then (Congress leader) B K Hariprasad approached the chair saying the bell was still ringing and that the deputy chairperson’s actions were against parliamentary procedures. To which, MLA Y A Narayanswamy replied that there was a no-trust motion against the chairperson. Following this, a ruckus erupted,” she stated, according to an excerpt from her response.
She has further stated that she had no role to play in Dharmegowda occupying Shetty’s chair. “I refute allegations against me for instigating these events.”
On December 15, the ruling party MLCs staged a coup in the Legislative Council, by allowing JD(S) MLC and Deputy Chairperson Dharmegowda to occupy Shetty’s seat, to move a no-confidence motion against the chairperson.