Plea by Ind legislators: SC refuses to pass order

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to pass any order on a plea by two Independ ent MLAs, even as they contended that the matter should be closed since their writ petition for direction to conduct the floor test forthwith in the Assembly has been addressed.

“Where is Mr (Mukul) Rohatgi, Mr (A M) Singhvi and Mr (Kapil) Sibal? We will pass our order only in their presence. They have taken a lot of our time,” a bench presided over by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said.

Advocate Diksha Rai, who filed the joint petition on behalf of MLAs R Shankar and H Nagesh, submitted Rohatgi was out of Delhi and it was not possible for him to appear before the court.

The bench, however, insisted that it would deal with the matter only in the presence of the senior counsel. Senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, who represents Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, was present in the courtroom.

On this, Rai pleaded for withdrawal of the petition, which was also refused by the court. By the evening, the writ petition was posted for consideration on Thursday.

The court had on Tuesday deferred considering the writ petition, after recording a statement from Singhvi on behalf of Speaker Ramesh Kumar that he expected to conduct the floor test on Tuesday itself.