SC refuses to pass order on Karnataka Congress request about CM Yediyurappa's audio clip
New Delhi, Nov 5: The Supreme Court Tuesday refused to pass order on the request of Karnataka Congress regarding fresh audio clip in which state Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa is purportedly referring to the 17 rebel Cong-JD(S) MLAs who were disqualified as Assembly members.
A 3-judge bench headed by Justice N V Ramana said that since it has already reserved its verdict on a batch of petitions, filed by the MLAs challenging the decision of the then Assembly speaker K R Ramesh Kumar to disqualify them, no further order was required to be passed at present.
"As judgment in these matters has already been reserved on October 25, 2019, no further orders are required at present," said the bench, also comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari.
The apex court said the issue raised regarding hospitality provided to the rebel MLAs in Mumbai, allegedly by the BJP, was already brought before it during the hearing on the pleas filed by these disqualified lawmakers.
A purported audio clip of Yediyurappa, expressing anguish against his party leaders at a recent party meeting in Hubballi over their opposition to giving tickets to the disqualified Congress-JD(S) MLAs for the December 5 Assembly by-polls in 15 constituencies, had surfaced last Friday.
In the audio, he is purportedly saying that the MLAs, who were later disqualified, were kept in Mumbai during the final days of the coalition government under BJP national President Amit Shah's watch.
By-polls to 15 out of 17 seats represented by disqualified MLAs will be held on December 5.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Karnataka Congress, told the bench that in the audio clip, Yediyurappa has said during the core committee meeting of the BJP that the whole thing was "engineered" by BJP national president, who is also the union Home Minister.
He said since the top court has reserved its verdict on the batch of petitions filed by disqualified MLAs, they want to place the audio clip on record.
"You have extensively covered everything in the arguments," the bench told Sibal.
Sibal, however, told the bench that audio clip has come into light after arguments were over in the apex court.
"Order of the speaker has to be tested. If you want to place additional evidence on record then we will have to issue notice," the bench said, adding, "You have brought it to our notice, we will consider it. Allow us to deliver the judgement".
The Karnataka Congress has requested the top court to take on record the audio clip in which Yediyurappa is purportedly hitting out at his party leaders for not recognising the "sacrifice" of the disqualified Congress-JD(S) MLAs, because of whom the BJP could come to power in the state.
The speaker had disqualified 17 lawmakers as MLAs, ruling that they cease to be MLAs with immediate effect till the expiry of the 15th Karnataka Assembly (in 2023).
The top court had on October 25 reserved verdict on the batch of petitions challenging the disqualification of the 17 Karnataka MLAs before the trust vote moved by the previous H D Kumaraswamy government.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
