Disqualified MLAs seek to defer Karnataka bypolls

Mangalore Today News Network

Bengaluru, Nov 08, 2019 : Karnataka’s disqualified MLAs on Friday moved the Supreme Court to seek a direction to the Election Commission of India to further postpone bypolls on 15 Assembly seats, since the judgement on their fate was still awaited.

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for petitioners, mentioned the plea before a bench presided over by Justice N V Ramana. He said filing of nominations for bypolls, scheduled on December 5, would begin from November 11 and end on November 18 but the judgement on their writ petitions against their disqualification was yet to come, Deccan Herald reported.

 

 

He sought urgent hearing on Wednesday on the application filed by them in this regard. The court replied saying, "You file the application, we will see."

The top court had on October 25 reserved the judgement on petitions filed by 17 rebel MLAs from the Congress and JD(S) against their disqualification by the then Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar after their resignation, which led to the fall of Congress-JD(S) coalition government in July. The then Speaker had debarred them from being members of the remaining term of the Legislative Assembly.

During the hearing on their pleas, the Election Commission agreed to postpone bypolls from October 21 to December 5 as the top court said it wanted to take a final decision on the matter, instead of passing any interim order.