Want to withdraw plea for floor test: 2 Karnataka MLAs to SC

 The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to allow state's independent MLAs -- R. Shankar and H. Nagesh -- to withdraw their plea seeking direction to the Assembly Speaker to conduct floor test in the House immediately.

A bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, said it would only pass orders in the presence of the counsels of the two parties, senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Rohatgi and Singhvi were not present for the hearing today.

"You have taken a lot of our time on this matter. We will only pass orders in their presence of senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Abhishek Manu Singhvi," said the court.

Claiming they had withdrawn support to the state's ruling Congress-Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) coalition government, the two independent MLAs had in their plea asked the court to direct the Speaker to conduct floor test in the House immediately.

The bench had yesterday agreed to hear their plea on Wednesday after Singhvi, who is representing Karnataka Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar, assured the court that the floor test might take place by the end of the day.

The 14-month-old Congress-JD-S coalition government in Karnataka fell on Tuesday evening after it failed to prove majority in the floor test in the Assembly. IANS