New Delhi/Bengaluru: As suspense mounted over the fate of the 14-month-old Kumaraswamy government in Karnataka, the Supreme Court will deliver on Wednesday its crucial order on the pleas of 15 rebel Congress-JD (S) MLAs seeking a direction to Assembly Speaker to accept their resignations. The court decision capped high-voltage arguments Tuesday during which Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said the rebel MLAs are "hunting in a pack", alleging their motive is to bring down his government while the dissidents submitted Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar wants to prop up a government which has lost majority. The Speaker on his part said that he, being a constitutional functionary, cannot be directed to first decide on the resignations of the MLAs and thereafter the pending disqualification applications.

The chief minister is due to face a trust vote on Thursday and his government could collapse ahead of it if the resignations of the rebel MLAs are accepted by the Speaker. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it was not restraining the Speaker from deciding the disqualification but was only asking him to ascertain whether the rebel MLAs voluntarily resigned. The bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, also said the apex court had given a "very high status" to the Speaker while interpreting the anti-defection law decades ago and "probably that needs a re-look after so many years." The bench said there are rival submissions on the issue of resignation and disqualification of MLAs and "we will do the required balancing." The ruling coalition's strength in the House is 117-- Congress 78, JD(S) 37, BSP 1, and nominated 1, besides the Speaker. With the support of the two independents who have withdrawn support, the opposition BJP has 107 MLAs in the 225-member House, including the nominated MLA and Speaker. If the resignations of the 16 MLAs are accepted, the ruling coalition's tally will be reduced to 101.