After not getting any relief so far, six former Congress MLAs on Friday withdrew their pleas to the Supreme Court against the Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker's decision to disqualify them from the House.
Senior lawyer Abhinav Mukherjee, appearing for the former MLAs, told the apex court judges that they wanted to withdraw their petitions.
A two-judge bench of the top court, led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna and also comprising Justice Dipankar Datta, noted and recorded the submissions made by Mukherjee and allowed his plea.
"We knew this was going to happen due to the elections," the bench said.
The Supreme Court in its earlier order had refused to stay the disqualification of the six Congress MLAs. They had challenged the State Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania's decision to disqualify them under the Tenth Schedule after cross voting in the recently concluded Rajya Sabha elections.
The six Congress MLAs disqualified by Pathania are Sudhir Sharma, Rajinder Rana, Ravi Thakur, Chaitanya Sharma, Davinder K Bhutto and Inder Dutt Lakhanpal.
In the first week of March, the six MLAs had knocked the doors of the Supreme Court challenging the State Assembly Speaker's decision to disqualify them.
The State Assembly Speaker had in his order disqualified the six MLAs after noting that they attracted disqualification under the anti-defection law as they defied the whip. They thereby also ceased to be members of the House.
The six Congress MLAs, in their defence, submitted that the mandatory seven days' time for replying to the notice was not given to them.