BENGALURU: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked Karnataka’s disqualified legislators to communicate their urgency for hearing to the court Registrar. They had moved the court challenging previous Speaker Ramesh Kumar’s order disqualifying them and that their plea be heard ‘urgently’.
A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra told the counsel appearing for the rebels to hand over the memo to the Registrar.
Ramesh Kumar had disqualified them invoking the provisions of the 10th Schedule which the rebels have challenged. They claimed that the order was arbitrary and not in line with what was laid down under the Karnataka Legislative Assembly rules. The 17 Congress-JDS rebels who brought down the coalition government and dreamt of being ministers see their dreams fading, slowly.
BC Patil, one of the disqualified rebel MLAs (Hirekerur) said, “We have faith in the legal system and in the Supreme Court. Our case is posted for August 19 and we will wait. We will, in the meantime, approach the Registar to hear our case urgently.’’The rebels had pointed out in their petition that the then Speaker had gone out of office when they went to resign on July 6.
In the petition, they have also narrated the sequence of events leading to their disqualification and sought a direction to call for records of the proceedings before the Speaker.The rebels who were in Mumbai and other destinations have since returned to their homes and have had to answer a barrage of questions from their supporters and workers and most importantly from family members on when they would become ministers. It is already 38 days since they resigned and there is a big question mark on their future.
Some rebel leaders’ expectations have been put on hold. Some of them had claimed direct contact with the central BJP leadership. The BJP-led central government has not appreciated the need to ‘honour’ these rebels and ‘reward,’ them for bringing down the coalition government. Some of them are first-time MLAs and all this uncertainty has not helped them. The rebels were also counting on ‘assurances’ made by some leaders of the state BJP.