Supreme Court Takes Note Of Speaker’s Submission That Karnataka Trust Vote Likely Today

The Supreme Court on Tuesday took note of the submissions of Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar that the Karnataka trust vote is likely to be concluded by today evening.

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi considered the submission of senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for the speaker.

The apex court adjourned till Wednesday the hearing on the plea of two independent MLAs seeking a direction to the Speaker to forthwith conduct the Karnataka trust vote in the House.

The two MLAs, who withdrew support to the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) government in Karnataka, had moved the top court saying the state has plunged into a political crisis after they withdrew their support to the government and 16 lawmakers of the ruling coalition tendered their resignations.

"It is submitted that the trust vote is not being conducted despite the government being in minority. It is submitted that a minority government, which does not have the confidence of the majority, is being allowed to continue in office," they had said in their plea.

The plea had further said, "The petitioners have been constrained to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction of this court under Article 32 of the Constitution of India seeking a direction from this court to conduct a floor test forthwith in the Karnataka Assembly."

The two legislators had said that Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala had sent messages to the house under Article 175(2) of the Constitution asking for completion of vote of confidence, but they were not adhered to and the trust vote debate continued unending.

The legislators had accused the government of taking advantage of the logjam and taking several executive decisions like transferring of police officers, IAS officers, other officials.

The Independent MLAs' petition came after Kumaraswamy and Karnataka state Congress President Dinesh Gundu Rao had moved the top court accusing the Governor of interfering with the Assembly proceedings during the debate on trust vote.

Kumaraswamy and Rao had filed separate applications after the deadlines set by the governor to conclude the proceedings of the confidence motion were not met.

They had also sought a clarification of the July 17 order of the apex court by which the 15 rebel Congress-JD(S) MLAs were granted relief that they cannot be compelled to participate in the ongoing assembly proceedings.

All the petitions were moved at a time when the Karnataka Assembly is debating the confidence motion moved by Kumaraswamy.