Abhishek Manu Singhvi to represent Congress tomorrow as rebel Karnataka legislators move SC against Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar

New Delhi: The Congress will put up its case before the Supreme Court on Thursday, when it is likely to take up a petition by rebel Karnataka MLAs seeking a direction to the Assembly Speaker for accepting their resignations. “Abhishek Manu Singhvi ji will represent us in Supreme Court tomorrow,” Congress leader KC Venugopal told ANI. [caption id=“attachment_4650751” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Abhishek Manu Singhvi. AFP[/caption] The rebel legislators had moved the top court earlier on Wednesday seeking a direction to Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to accept their resignation and not to proceed with the applications for their disqualification from the House. The plea was mentioned before a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Rajan Gogoi, former attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared on behalf of the MLAs. The apex court is likely to hear the matter on Thursday. Rohatgi contended before the court that the Speaker was “deliberately delaying” the acceptance of the resignation of the MLAs. The petition accused the Speaker of abandoning his constitutional duty. The plea was filed by Pratap Gouda Patil, Ramesh Jarkhiholi, Byrati Basavaraj, BC Patil, ST Somashekar, Arbail Sivaram Hebbar and Mahesh Kumathalli from Congress and K Gopalaiah, HD Vishwanath and Narayan Gowda from JD(S). The 13-month-old Congress-JDS government had slumped into crisis following the resignation of MLAs from the membership of the state Assembly on Saturday.