SC Order on Karnataka Crisis Seems to Protect Defectors, Says State Cong Chief Dinesh Gundu Rao

Bengaluru: The Congress in Karnataka has termed the Supreme Court order on the political crisis in the state as "bad judgment", which seemed to protect the defectors and encourage horse-trading.

In a series of tweets, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Dinesh Gundu Rao termed it an "extraordinary order".

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court directed that the 15 rebel Congress and JD(S) MLAs "ought not" to be compelled to take part in the proceedings of the state Assembly, where Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy is slated to face the floor test on July 18.

"Supreme Court order seems perfectly coordinated to help the rebel MLAs to violate the whip. It has set a wrong precedent as the value of the Whip as per 10th schedule of the Constitution is now redundant. An extraordinary order indeed!!!," Rao tweeted.

"The #SupremeCourt verdict is now encroaching upon the rights of the Legislature. This is a bad judgement which seems to protect the defectors and encourages horse-trading and also violating the doctrine of separation of powers," he said in another tweet.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi also said the speaker was free to decide on the resignations of the rebel MLAs within the time-frame decided by him.

The apex court was hearing the plea of 15 rebel Congress-JD(S) MLAs seeking direction for the speaker to accept their resignations from the assembly.

Noting that Congress' disqualification petition with the speaker against party MLAs is as per section 2-1a of the anti-defection law, Rao tweeted, "It's not for violating the whip but for indulging in anti-party activities, to join hands with BJP to topple our govt and voluntarily giving up membership."

The Congress has moved disqualification petition against 13 MLAs, including independent R Shankar, who had merged his Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party (KPJP) with it.

The other Congress MLAs include Pratap Gowda Patil, BC Patil, Shivram Hebbar, S T Somashekar, Byrati Basavaraj, Anand Singh, Roshan Baig, Munirathna, K Sudhakar and MTB Nagaraj.

Disqualification petition had been moved against Ramesh Jarkiholi and Mahesh Kumatalli earlier itself.

The JD(S) too on its part had moved disqualification petition against its 3 MLAs Gopalaiah, A H Vishwanath and Narayana Gowda, but the speaker had said it was not in proper format and those who submitted were not party MLAs or senior leaders.

As many as 16 MLAs — 13 from the Congress and three from the JD(S) — have resigned while two independent MLAs S Shankar and H Nagesh have withdrawn their support to the coalition government, keeping it on the edge.