Five more rebel Karnataka MLAs move SC

Five more Karnataka 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.

The legislators also 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.

The rebel MLAs said that when some of the applicants submitted their resignation on July 10, they were manhandled in the Assembly and were confined.

"They were rescued by the police personnel from the Legislative Assembly," the plea said.

The plea also submitted that their resignations were in "accordance with Rule 202 of the Rules of Procedure and the Conduct of Business of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly."

On Friday, the Supreme Court took up the petitions of 10 dissident MLAs and directed the Speaker to maintain the status quo on their resignation and disqualification till July 16.

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.

It is worth mentioning that R Shankar and H Nagesh, who have taken back their support to the ruling party, have requested the Speaker to make separate sitting arrangement for them in the Assembly.