In a major relief to the B S Yeddyurappa government, a three-judge bench of the Karnataka high court on Monday upheld the order of Karnataka Assembly Speaker KG Bopaiah suspending five independent MLAs who had withdrawn support to the government on October 6 last year.
Justices Abdul Nasir, Mohan Shanthan Goudar and A S Bopanna, in a unanimous verdict, held that the order of the Speaker was right and not malafide.
Further, the bench also held that the Speaker was within his right to suspend the MLAs and added that his actions were not in violation of the Constitution.
Five independent MLAs, who were part of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state, had broken away from the government. The speaker suspended these MLAs and barred from voting during the trust vote.
The Independent MLAs had stated that they were part of the government and not the party, and hence suspending them for anti-party activities does not arise.
The Speaker, however, said that they had pledged support to the party, obeyed whips issued in the past and also took part in legislature party meetings. Hence, he had the right to suspend them.
The matter pertaining to the 5 Independent MLAs went before a three-judge bench of the Karnataka high court and the bench had reserved orders on the matter when it came up for final hearing last week.
There is another petition pertaining to 11 disqualified BJP rebel MLAs, which has been reserved for orders by the Supreme Court.
In the case of the 11 BJP rebel MLAs, a division bench of the high court gave divergent views. While Chief Justice Kehar Singh upheld the order of the Speaker, Justice N Kumar gave a divergent view of the same. The matter then went up to a third judge, who also upheld the order of the Speaker.
