In a relief to Mulayam Singh government in Uttar Pradesh, the Supreme Court Friday stayed an Allahabad high court order and said the breakaway BSP legislators will continue as a separate group in the Assembly.

In an interim order staying the high court judgement directing the speaker to decide afresh the disqualification of 37 BSP MLAs, who had defected to form a separate party Loktantrik Bahujan Dal, a Bench of the apex court comprising Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P P Naolekar referred the matter to a larger bench.

The Bench said the breakaway MLAs will be recognised as a separate group in the assembly till the matter was decided as the MLAs have to be given a standing in the House.

The MLAs had defected from the BSP in September 2003 and the then Speaker Kesri Nath Tripathi had recognised them as a separate group, which later had merged with Samajwadi Party.

They had challenged the February 28 verdict of the high court quashing by 2:1 majority Tripathi's decision to recognise them as a separate party.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the breakaway group, had sought staying of the high court judgement and had argued that the September 6, 2003, order of the speaker should be allowed to operate in the prevalent circumstances.

However, it was opposed by senior advocates K K Venugopal and S C Mishra appearing for the BSP contending that the operation of Septemeber 6, 2003, order would mean staying of the high court verdict and till the issue of disqualification was decided the defected MLAs should be treated as BSP MLAs.