In a major development in the ongoing political crisis in Karnataka, five more Congress MLAs moved the Supreme Court on Saturday, contending they had resigned ‘voluntarily’ and that their resignation must be accepted by the Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar.
The petition, filed by Anand Singh, K Sudhakar, N Nagaraju, Munirathna and Roshan Baig of the Congress party, has sought a direction to the Speaker to not proceed with the application for their disqualification.
Including these five, the total number of lawmakers who approached the top court is now 15. The development comes a day after the apex court directed Karnataka Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to maintain the status quo on their resignation and disqualification till July 16.
ALSO READ: Goa: Three Congress MLAs who defected to BJP takes oath as ministers
The five legislators claimed that there was no disqualification proceeding against them when they resigned.
“The disqualification proceedings are being used to threaten and intimidate the MLAs. On one hand, the Speaker is not acting upon the resignation and on the other, a whip has been issued threatening disqualification for failure to attend the legislature proceeding starting July 12,” the petition stated.
Earlier, the 10 rebels MLAs had moved the Supreme Court against the Speaker’s decision rejecting their resignations. The Speaker had rejected the resignations of the 10 MLAs saying the resignations were not in the correct format.
The 13-month-old Congress-JD(S) government slumped into crisis following the resignation of 10 MLAs from the membership of the state Assembly on July 6.
Click here for Latest News updates and viral videos on our AI-powered smart news
For viral videos and Latest trends subscribe to NewsMobile YouTube Channel and Follow us on Instagram