Supreme Court defers hearing on plea filed by Karnataka Independent MLAs seeking trust vote

The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred the hearing till Wednesday on a plea filed by two Independent Karnataka MLAs seeking directions on the trust vote.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that it will hear the matter on Wednesday after Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu, representing Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar, appeared optimistic and assured the court that the floor test might take place by the end of the day.

The two MLAs, H Nagesh and R Shankar, who withdrew support to the Congress-JD(S) government in Karnataka, have made state Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, and the Central government as respondents in their petition. 

On Friday, the Assembly failed to meet two deadlines set by Governor Vajubhai Vala to complete the trust vote.

After which, chief minister Kumaraswamy moved the Supreme Court challenging the Governor's directive to the government saying it was in violation of well-settled law laid down by the court.

Last week, the Supreme Court had ruled that the Karnataka Speaker K R Ramesh cannot be forced to decide on the resignations of 15 rebel MLAs within a time frame.

The top court also said that the 15 rebel MLAs cannot be compelled to participate in the Assembly proceedings or the trust vote on Thursday.

Karnataka government has been reduced to a minority in the Assembly after 16 rebel legislators resigned and 2 Independents withdrew support to it.

(With inputs from agencies)