The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the order of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker disqualifying six Congress rebels, who had cross-voted in the recent Rajya Sabha polls in the state.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta issued notice to the office of HP Assembly speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania and sought its response to the plea in four weeks.
The bench said that pending adjudication of their plea, rebel HP Congress MLAs will not be allowed to vote or participate in the proceedings of the Assembly.
"On the question of by-election on six vacant seats, we will have to examine whether the elections which have been notified by the ECI are to be stayed during the pendency of plea," the bench said.
It posted the matter for listing on May 6 and gave the rebel MLAs a week to file their rejoinder.
The filing of nominations for six vacant assembly seats starts on May 7.
The six rebels -- Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma and Devinder Kumar Bhutto -- were disqualified on February 29, for defying a Congress whip to be present in the House and vote in favour of the Himachal Pradesh government during the cut motion and budget.
Following the disqualification of the rebels, the House's effective strength has gone down to 62 from 68, while the number of Congress MLAs has shrunk to 34 from 40.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Featured Video Of The Day
India Must Shield Constitutional Bodies From Political Influence: Supreme Court Judge Supreme Court Dismisses Plea Seeking Review Of Bail Order To Senthil Balaji "Marriage Built On Trust, Companionship, Shared Experiences": Supreme Court "Congress Should Be Ready...": Mani Shankar Aiyar's Big INDIA Bloc Remark 3 Marriages, Rs 1.25 Crore: How 'Looting Bride' Targeted Rich Men Bashar Al-Assad's Wife Files For Divorce, Wants To Return To UK: Report "No Chief Minister Face, No Agenda": Arvind Kejriwal Counters BJP Attack Who Was Epigamia CEO Rohan Mirchandani, Who Died Of Cardiac Arrest At 41 140 Trillion Oceans Of Water Discovered In Deep Space Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.