The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred hearing till Wednesday on a petition moved by two Independent Karnataka MLAs seeking a direction for concluding the floor test in the state Assembly.
The hearing was deferred by the bench of the Apex Court, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi after Karnataka Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar told the court that the trust vote is likely to be held today.
Former Attorney General (AG) and senior advocate, Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the two independent MLAs, today pleaded with the Supreme Court to pass a direction to hold a floor test by today evening with respect to the Karnataka political crisis.
"Please pass a direction to hold a floor test by today evening," Rohatgi submitted to the Apex Court three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi and also comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose and Deepak Gupta.
Rohatgi submitted that despite the Governor's directions to hold a floor test, the same was not complied with, and thereby the SC should pass immediate orders into it.
Senior advocate Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the state Assembly Speaker, told the SC that the debate may end today or latest by tomorrow. The floor test will eventually happen by today evening.
After being apprised that the floor test would be held by today evening, the SC deferred the hearing for tomorrow.
Two independent Karnataka MLAs -- R Shankar and H Nagesh -- had moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction from the SC to Karnataka Government to conduct floor test tomorrow before 5 pm.
Before Nagesh and Shankar, Karnataka Congress President, Dinesh Gundu Rao had also knocked the doors of the SC seeking a direction on the issue.
Rao, in his petition, claimed that the SC order had violated the party's right to issue whip to its MLAs. He also sought a clarification from the Apex Court on the order regarding issuing whip on the issue.
Earlier, the court on Monday had refused to grant an urgent hearing on the petition.
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 July 19, the Karnataka Assembly failed to meet two deadlines set by Governor Vajubhai Vala to complete the trust vote, after Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy challenged the directive. The trust vote is scheduled for today.
The 13-month-old Congress-JDS government slumped into a minority earlier this month following the resignations of 16 dissident MLAs from the Assembly.
The Assembly has 224 members. The halfway mark in the House is 113.
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