Five more Rebel MLAs from Karnataka move Supreme Court, seek impleadment

Five more rebel MLAs from Karnataka have approached the Supreme Court seeking impleadment in the case relating to their resignation from the House..The MLAs, Anand Singh, K Sudhakar, M Nagaraju, Munirathna and Roshan Baig have contended in their impleadment application that they had submitted their resignations in accordance with Article 190 read with Rule 202 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. Despite most of them submitting their resignations in person, the Speaker has not accepted their resignation, the applicants contend..The act of submitting the resignation in person itself shows the voluntary nature and genuineness of the resignation. No further inquiry [on the part of Speaker] is contemplated under Article 190, the MLAs state..Article 190(3)(b) contemplates an inquiry which is only for two considerations:.(a) Whether resignation is voluntary and.(b) whether resignation is genuine..Once the MLA himself states that the resignation is voluntary, there is no scope for any inquiry on this account, the application states..Regarding genuineness, once the concerned MLA submits the resignation in person under his own signature, the said ground would also stand answered..In order to buttress their case, the five MLAs have stated that they are filing affidavits to the Supreme Court stating that they are resigning voluntarily..Importantly, the MLAs have stated that there were no disqualification proceedings against them on the date of resignation. Hence, the resignation cannot be invalidated by filing disqualification proceedings subsequently..The MLAs have also stated that they fear for their safety since some of them were manhandled in the Assembly when they sought to submit their resignation on July 10..Since the applicants are similarly situated as the ten MLAs who had approached the Court earlier, they have sought impleadment in the matter..The Supreme Court had yesterday ordered that status quo be maintained by the Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly with respect to the resignations by rebel MLAs and the disqualification proceedings against them..A Bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose said that the case involves issues of substantial importance involving Articles 164, 190 and 361 of the Constitution..It had, therefore, posted the matter for further hearing on July 16, Tuesday while ordering status quo..[Read Impleadment Application]