The Karnataka Speaker has disqualified three lawmakers for the rest of the current term of the legislature.

If the disqualification holds, the MLAs cannot contest elections before 2023, the normal term of the House. But if the Assembly is dissolved before that, their sit-out period will shrink.

Speaker Ramesh Kumar made public his ruling at a media conference on Thursday evening, citing complaints filed by Congress legislature party leader P.C. Siddaramaiah and the party’s state president, Dinesh Gundu Rao.

The disqualified Congress lawmakers are Ramesh Jarkiholi, Mahesh Kumathalli and R. Shankar, who had merged the Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janata Party with the Congress after being inducted into the cabinet in June.

“I will give my decisions on the remaining complaints within a couple of days,” Kumar said, alluding to similar complaints faced by 14 other lawmakers who had resigned this month.

The three lawmakers have been disqualified under the Tenth Schedule and Article 164 (1B) of the Constitution.

Section 164 (1B) has a sentence that gives an impression that a disqualified member can contest elections before the expiry of the term of the House. But Speaker Kumar said the legal opinion he had received endorsed disqualification until the expiry of the term of the House.

“Those who are disqualified cannot contest during the entire term of the 15th legislature. The term of the House comes to a close when the Assembly is dissolved and subsequently fresh elections are held. Then it becomes the 16th Assembly,” Kumar said.

The Speaker said he considered the resignations submitted by the legislators as well as the complaints filed against them by their party.

“I first rejected their resignations since the circumstances that they submitted them in had compelled me to arrive at the inference that the resignations were not voluntary and hence not genuine,” he said.

Jarkiholi was among the first ruling coalition MLAs to resign. He had resigned along with party colleague Anand Singh on July 1. Kumathalli resigned along with 10 others on July 6.

While all of them submitted the resignations to the Speaker’s office, Shankar had submitted a letter to governor Vajubhai Vala, extending his support to the BJP on July 8.

Although the Speaker had sent them notices to appear before him for a hearing after the Congress sought their disqualification, no one had turned up. Instead, lawyers representing them met the Speaker on Wednesday.

While Shankar had supported the coalition government when it was formed in May 2018, he later switched his loyalties to BJP, only to swing back to the ruling coalition when he was inducted into the cabinet on June 14.

Jarkiholi has been a thorn in the side of the coalition ever since the cabinet shuffle in December 2018 when he was dropped to accommodate his then rebel sibling Satish Jarkiholi.