SUPREME Court judge Justice M M Shantanagoudar on Tuesday recused himself from hearing petitions filed by 17 disqualified MLAs of Karnataka challenging the decision of the then Speaker to disqualify them from the Assembly.
"In this matter, I am not participating" Justice Shantanagoudar, who was part of a three-judge bench headed by Justice N V Ramana, said at the outset.
The bench has now posted the matter for hearing on September 23.
The court had earlier refused to pass any order on listing of petitions filed by the 17 disqualified MLAs, asking what was the urgency as the petitions would come up in due course.
The then Assembly speaker, K R Ramesh Kumar, had disqualified 17 MLAs which eventually led to the fall of the JD (S)-Congress coalition government headed by then chief minister H D Kumaraswamy.
Kumaraswamy had resigned as the chief minister after losing the trust vote which paved the way for the BJP-led government in Karnataka under incumbent Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa.
These disqualified MLAs have approached the apex court challenging Kumar's decision to disqualify them.
Some of these disqualified MLAs have alleged in their pleas in the top court that decision taken by Kumar before his resignation as Speaker was wholly illegal, arbitrary and malafide exercise of his power under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.
They have also questioned Kumar's decision to reject their resignations by holding that it was not voluntary and genuine.
Army personnel stand amid the rubble following an explosion inside the police headquarters at Kohat in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on September 18, 2026. An explosion at a historic police headquarters in northern Pakistan on September 18 killed at least eight people and wounded 35 more, officials said, with the country's president swiftly blaming a militant group. Getty Images
Mourners read the holy Quran while sitting around the grave of a paramilitary personnel of the Frontier Corps (FC) who was killed during the Afghanistan-Pakistan border clashes, in Kohat on October 17, 2025. A ceasefire along the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan was holding on October 16, officials on both sides said, after dozens of troops and civilians were killed in cross-border clashes.Getty Images
