Karnataka Assembly Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar
Five more Karnataka Congress rebel legislators are set to petition the Supreme Court asking it to direct Assembly Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar to accept their resignations, sources said on Saturday.
"The five rebel legislators, who also resigned from their Assembly seats, are likely to petition the apex court on Monday for its direction to the Speaker to accept their resignations also at the earliest," a source in the know of their decision told IANS.
The five rebels are Anand Singh, Munirathna, Roshan Baig, M.T.B. Nagaraj and K. Sudhakar.
Singh resigned on July 1, Munirthna on July 6, Baig on July 9 and Nagaraj and Sudhakar on July 10.
Nagaraj is also the Housing Minister in the 13-month-old Congress-Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) coalition government. He was made a minister on December 22 when the Cabinet was reshuffled and expanded.
"I have prepared affidavits for Baig and Nagaraj to file their petitions in the apex court on Monday," city advocate-cum-notary H.H. Nagaraj told IANS.
The affidavits and petitions of the remaining three legislators were prepared by other lawyers in the city, said the source.
Ten rebel legislators, including seven from the Congress and three from the JD-S, had petitioned the top court on July 10 for its intervention in expediting the acceptance of their resignations by the Speaker.
Though a three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, directed the Speaker to allow the 10 rebels to resubmit their resignations and decide on them on July 11, it ordered the latter on July 12 to maintain status quo till July 16 when the case will be taken up for further hearing.
The Speaker sought more time from the apex court in deciding on the resignations as the ruling allies have petitioned him to disqualify them for defying their whip and alleged anti-party activities.
In a related development, Independents R. Shankar and H. Nagesh, who resigned as ministers on July 8 and withdrew their support to the coalition government, wrote to the Speaker to arrange their seats in the Opposition benches in the Assembly when they attend its Monsoon Session from Monday.
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