Only filling up of three vacant posts: Siddaramaiah on cabinet reshuffle
Bengaluru: Amid reports that Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy will reshuffle his cabinet to save the coalition government, the JD(S)-Congress Coordination Committee chief Siddaramaiah Tuesday said it would only be an expansion to fill three vacant posts.
"No reshuffle, it is a kind of expansion. Three (posts) are vacant. There is plan to fill them," Siddaramaiah told reporters in Mysuru.
On reports of some ministers being asked to resign to make way for the disgruntled, he said, "I'm not aware of it."
According to reports, some Ministers may be asked to step down to make way for disgruntled legislators, with an aim to keep the government safe.
The Karnataka cabinet which met on Friday after the coalition's rout in the Lok Sabha polls, had discussed the issue, which may also come up at the Congress Legislature Party meeting on Wednesday and AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal's meeting with Congress ministers this evening.
Out of 34 ministers, Congress and JD(S) have 22 and 12 respectively according to the coalition understanding. Currently, three posts are vacant, two from JD(S) and one from Congress.
Amid simmering discontent within the Congress, coalition leaders fear the BJP, spurred by the Lok Sabha poll outcome in which it bagged 25 of the 28 seats in the state, may poach some MLAs.
Rebel Congress MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi's visit to senior BJP leader S M Krishna's residence here in the presence of party state chief B S Yeddyurappa on Sunday had fuelled the speculation.
Jarkiholi, who has been hobnobbing with the BJP for some time, had threatened to resign from the party along with some MLAs after the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP had predicted the collapse of the coalition and increase in its tally in the assembly after the LS poll results, claiming that 20-odd Congress MLAs were unhappy and may take any decision anytime.
Coalition partners Congress and JD(S) managed to win one seat each in the Lok Sabha polls.
In an attempt to save his government, Kumaraswamy has swung into action and is trying to pacify some disgruntled Congress legislators personally.
The Chief Minister on Monday had met Jarkiholi's confidant and Athani MLA Mahesh Kumathalli, and is said to have promised to look into their issues, including Jarkiholi's induction into the cabinet.
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Court can reject anticipatory bail but cannot direct accused to surrender: SC
New Delhi (PTI): A court can reject anticipatory bail of an accused but it has no jurisdiction to direct him to surrender before the trial court, the Supreme Court has said.
A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Ujjal Bhuyan made the observation while hearing a plea filed by a man accused of cheating and forgery.
"If the court wants to reject the anticipatory bail, it may do so, but the court has no jurisdiction to say that the petitioner should now surrender," the bench said.
The Jharkhand High Court had rejected anticipatory bail plea of the accused and asked him to surrender and seek regular bail.
In this case, a complaint had been filed before a magistrate alleging offences under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged document) and 120B read with 34 of the IPC, in connection with a land dispute.
The high court had dismissed the second anticipatory bail application of the accused on the ground that no new circumstances were shown.
It had relied on its earlier order rejecting his first anticipatory bail plea, in which the court directed the petitioner to surrender before the trial court and seek regular bail in terms of the decision in Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI.
The top court said such a direction was wholly without jurisdiction and said that if a court chooses to reject anticipatory bail, it may do so, but it cannot compel the accused to surrender.
