The Lokayukta had indicted the legislators for their failure to file statements of their personal assets and on assuming office.

The interim stay was granted by a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice A S Anand, Justice M Srinivasan and Justice R C Lahoti when three Special Leave Petitions (SLPs), by the two ministers and the chairman of the SC/ST Development Corporation, challenging the impugned High Court order, were mentioned for fixing an early date of hearing.

The bench fixed September 6 for the hearing of the SLPs.

The two ministers asked by the High Court to resign along with the 11 legislators are Nagappa Saloni and Ashwathanarayana Reddy.

The High Court while hearing a writ petition last year was informed by the Lokayukta that as many as 190MLAs/MLCs including 26 ministers have not filed their statements on their personal assets and liabilities.

The High Court had disposed of the petition after asking the Lokayukta to treat the petition as a complaint and proceed in accordance with law.

The same petitioner again approached the court this year seeking a directive to the Election Commission to disqualify those defaulting politicians from contesting elections.

The Lokayukta in its reply to the court had said that the defaulting public servants should not continue to hold their posts. On August 27, the High Court accepted the report of Lokayukta and asked the public servants including the two ministers to quit their posts.

The High Court had ordered that Minister of State for Home Ashwathanarayana Reddy and Minister of State for Major Irrigation B Nagappa Saloni quit their posts within three days, failing which the competent authority should remove them from their offices.

The court noted that the Lokayukta Act was enacted with the avowedobject of cleansing public life and the act made it mandatory for legislators and ministers to file statements on their assets before the authority.

The court, which was disposing of a public interest litigation by Hottepaksha Rangaswamy, however, rejected the prayer for a direction to the Chief Election Commissioner to disqualify legislators who had not filed the statutory statements from contesting the polls for six years.

The bench observed that since there was no provision to either take away the elected office of sitting MPs or MLAs or disqualify them from contesting elections, the prayer for debarring `defaulting' legislators could not be granted under the circumstances.

On August 31, the High Court dismissed the applications by two ministers seeking review of its earlier order asking them to quit their offices within three days for their failure to file statement of assets and liabilities before the Lokayukta.