Bengaluru: The Supreme Court of India today upheld the decision of the former Speaker, K. R. Ramesh Kumar to disqualify 17 MLAs. The Speaker had disqualified the MLAs prior to a trust vote in which the former JD(U)-Congress alliance government fell in July this year and a BJP government came into power.
The MLAs belonging to Congress and JD(U) had given their resignation letter to the Speaker but he did not accept it. Instead he disqualified them for the rest of the term of the House.
However, the apex court allowed the MLAs to contest the by-polls scheduled on 5 December. If re-elected the MLAs can return to the House and the ban of the Speaker would not be binding.
The Court also expressed the fact that the MLAs approached the highest court without approaching the state court first.
The verdict was delivered by a three-judge bench of Justices, N. V. Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna, and Krishna Murari.
