PTI 
 
Bangalore, Feb 2: : The Karnataka High Court on Thursday rejected a petition seeking disqualification of chief minister-designate H D Kumaraswamy and 35 JD-S MLAs owing allegiance to him.

 
The petition also sought preventing Kumaraswamy and the MLAs from taking part in Legislative Assembly proceedings and becoming Ministers on grounds of defection.

A division Bench comprising Chief Justice Cyriac Joseph and Justice R Gurarajan noted that the Speaker was yet to take a decision on the issue of disqualification and said the Court was not inclined to pass any order at this stage.

The Bench said it did not consider issuing an order to the Speaker to expedite disposing of petitions pending before him seeking disqualification. Whether the MLAs were liable to be disqualified was to be decided by the Speaker, the Bench said.

Even without a direction, the Court said it expected that the Speaker would take appropriate action as early as possible. The Bench expressed the view that if the petitioners had any cause for grievance at a later stage, they were open to approach the Court praying for any direction.

The petition was filed by MLAs -- Vatal Nagaraj (Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha), G V Srirama Reddy (CPM) and S Rajendran (Republican Party).