The Chief Minister of Karnataka, B.S. Yeddyurappa today breathed a sigh of relief as a third judge of the Karnataka High Court upheld the disqualification of the rebel BJP MLAs. Justice V.G. Sabhahit who heard the matter when an earlier Bench consisting of Chief Justice J.S. Kehar and Justice N. Kumar gave a split verdict regarding the disqualification of the rebel MLAs.

The Speaker’s order of disqualification was in accordance with Para 2 (1) (a) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, observed Justice Sabhahit, who has concurred with the ruling given by the Chief Justice earlier. Justice Sabhahit on Friday placed his order before the Division Bench for delivering its formal orders.

On October 11, B.S. Yeddyurappa faced a trust vote to prove his party’s continuing majority after 11 rebel MLAs from the party and 5 independent MLAs showed signs of reaching out to the opposition parties in the State.

Before the trust vote could begin, Speaker K.G. Bopaiah dismissed the 16 rebel MLAs from the Karnataka Assembly under the Anti-Defection Act in response to Yeddyurappa's petition. Soon after the floor test was won by the Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, Governor of the State H.R. Bhardwaj stated that the disqualification of the MLAs was illegal and that President’s Rule be imposed in the State.

The 16 MLAs then approached the High Court where a specially constituted Bench headed by Chief Justice J.S. Kehar and Justice N. Kumar, heard their petition. Senior Counsel K.G. Raghavan of Dua Associates represented the 11 MLAs, while Senior Advocates Soli Sorabjee, K.N. Bhat and Satyapal Jain represented the Chief Minister and the Speaker.

On the disqualification, Justice Kehar held that the letter given to the Governor by the MLAs clearly demonstrated their intention to give up membership to their party. Justice Kehar also went on to state that some of the MLAs were ministers in Yeddyurappa’s cabinet even when they sent the letter to the Governor and should have resigned from their post before seeking a recourse. 

Justice Kumar held a differing opinion where he said that since some of the dissident MLAs were ministers of the Chief Minister’s cabinet, they were insiders who had tried to fight corruption, nepotism etc. as alleged by them in their letter to the Governor, and since their efforts had not yielded results, they approached the Governor. 

In his order, Justice Sabhahit stated, “It is clear that the contents of the letter given to the Governor by the petitioners would lead to the inevitable inference that the intention of the petitioners was to voluntary giving up membership of the BJP. I hold that the impugned order passed by the Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly is in consonance with the provisions of Para 2(1) (a) of Tenth Schedule to the Constitution of India. In view of my answer to the referred question, I concur with the finding of the Hon’ble Chief Justice”.

A copy of Justice Sabhahit’s order can be found here.