Karnataka trust vote result to be subject to HC ruling

The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday ruled that the result of the trust vote on Thursday would be subject to its judgment on the disqualification of five independent members of the legislative assembly by Speaker K G Bopaiah.

A bench of the high court, Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice N Kumar, which heard the interim petition of the independent MLAs, said: “The floor test will be subject to the judgment of this bench on the amended writ petition filed by the five independents against their disqualification by the Speaker.”

Yesterday, the bench had posted the case of the independents to October 18, after directing their counsel, K G Raghavan to the writ plea as the original petition was flawed.

The five disqualified independents are Venkataramanappa, Shivaraj Tangadagi, Goolihatti Sekhar, D Sudhakar and M P Narendraswamy.

Besides the amended writ, Raghavan filed three supplementary petitions, seeking the court’s permission to vote in tomorrow’s confidence motion, as their case was pending; to allow them to put their votes in a sealed cover and deposit this with the court; and to postpone the trust vote till the judgment was pronounced.

Rejecting all the three fresh petitions, Justice Khehar said the court could not give a directive to the Speaker to allow the independents to vote or postpone the floor test, as these were his prerogative and not the judiciary.

The court also did not accept their plea for permission to participate in tomorrow’s trust vote and give their vote in a sealed cover.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka government made elaborate arrangements for Thursday’s special assembly session, where Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa would again seek a vote of confidence to prove his majority in the house.

Governor Hans Raj Bhardwaj had on Tuesday advised the chief minister to seek a fresh trust vote.

The ruling BJP has issued a three-line whip to its 105 legislators to vote in favour of the motion for proving a majority on the floor of the Assembly. The party has also lodged all its members at the Golden Palm resort on the outskirts of the city to prevent horse trading or poaching by rival parties.

With the disqualification of the 16 rebel legislators, including 11 from the BJP, the strength of the House is reduced to 208, with 105 as the halfway mark for proving majority.

The strength of the combined opposition is 101 — 73 of the Congress and 28 of JD(S). One independent, Varthur Prakash, who was backing JD(S) till now, today switched over to the ruling BJP and extended his support to Yeddyurappa.