SC requests Karnataka Speaker to meet rebel MLAs at 6 pm today

The Supreme Court on Thursday requested Karnataka Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar to meet at 6 pm the dissident ruling MLAs wishing to resign their Assembly membership, and take a call on their application.

"The 10 petitioners (MLAs) will appear before the speaker of the Karnataka legislative assembly at 6 pm today. The speaker is requested to take a decision on whether it can be permitted," CJI Ranjan Gogoi said.

The Speaker's decision will be conveyed to the Supreme Court which will hear the matter again on Friday. The Karnataka DGP has been directed to provide them protection after they reach Bengaluru airport from Mumbai, where they are now staying in a luxury hotel.


The plea by the dissident Congress and JD(S) MLAs had sought direction for the Speaker to accept their resignation as they wanted to contest fresh elections.

In the petition, the MLAs also alleged that the Speaker was protecting the government which is in minority now. The MLAs further sought a direction that the Speaker be restrained from proceeding with the application for their disqualification.

The MLAs said their resignations were voluntary and genuine, and they themselves have given innumerable television interviews and statements requesting the Speaker time and again to accept their resignation.

The 10 rebel MLAs who have filed the application in the top court are -- Prathap Gouda Patil, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Byrati Basavaraj, B C Patil, S T Somashekar, Arbail Shivaram Hebbar, Mahesh Kumathalli, K Gopalaiah, A H Vishwanath and Narayana Gowda.

The state Assembly Speaker had held on Tuesday that the resignations of eight out of 14 rebel MLAs were not in order and asked them to file them fresh, while asking the others to meet him personally and convince him.

16 Karnataka MLAs - 13 are from Congress and three from JD(S) - have submitted their resignations so far . The coalition's total strength is 116 (Congress-78, JD(S)-37 and BSP-1), besides the Speaker. If the resignations of the 16 MLAs are accepted, the coalition's tally will be reduced to 100. With the support of the two independents, who have resigned from the ministry, the BJP has 107 MLAs in the 224-member House.