The Supreme Court would resume the hearing on Madhya Pradesh floor test on Thursday at 10.30am.

During the hearing on Wednesday, the apex court said it will not come in the way of the Madhya Pradesh assembly deciding who has the trust of the House, and asked lawyers to assist it in ensuring that 16 rebel Congress lawmakers, who the party says are being held captive by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), get to exercise freedom of choice.

The development, amid a political standoff in the state between the Congress government of chief minister Kamal Nath and the BJP, came on a day Congress leader and the party's Rajya Sabha candidate from MP, Digvijaya Singh, was detained in Bengaluru when he tried to meet the rebel MLAs in the city.

Later, Singh filed a petition in the Karnataka high court seeking a meeting with the MLAs ahead of the RS election due on March 26. The court refused him interim relief and deferred the case to the same date.

In the Supreme Court, the 16 rebels offered to present themselves in the judges' chamber but the court rejected the proposal.A bench comprising justices DY Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta said the proposal was not appropriate and also refused to send its registrar general to meet them.

Observing that the MLAs may or may not go to the assembly, but cannot be held captive, the court said it was not going to come in the way of the legislature deciding who enjoys the trust of the House, but has to ensure the legislators can freely exercise their choice.

"It is their choice whether they want to enter, comply with whips, etc. But certainly, when allegation is that they are being held in captivity, we have to see they are at free will. These 16 either proceed to the floor or don't but surely they can't be held captive and how do we ensure this," the bench asked.

The court also said it knows that the 16 rebel MLAs as of now can tilt the balance one way or the other in the assembly.

The court would resume the hearing on Thursday at 10.30am.The court asked the lawyers to assist it on the modalities of ensuring that the lawmakers have free access to the assembly and get to exercise their choice.

Speaker NP Prajapati has approved the resignations of six MLAs who were ministers in Kamal Nath's cabinet. Before the rebellion, the Congress had 114 legislators and had the support of seven other legislators in the House, which has an effective strength of 228. If all remaining 16 resignations are accepted, the majority mark will go down to 104 in the House, where the BJP has 107 legislators.

The opposition BJP demanded an immediate floor test.

Congress lawyer in the court, Dushyant Dave, said the floor test should be deferred till the by-polls for the vacant seats arising out of the resignations are concluded, saying the "heavens are not going to fall" if its government is allowed to remain in office till then.

When the counsel for former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the rebel MLAs claimed they were in Bengaluru at their own free will, the bench said, "We are not saying they are held captive. Our concern is to allay the apprehension." Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi appeared for Chouhan while another senior advocate, Maninder Singh, represented the rebels.

Towards the end of the hearing, the bench put a poser to the speaker as to whether he will decide on the resignations of MLAs if they appear before him on Thursday, and said, "A latest judgment asks the speaker to decide quickly. Tell us when will you decide".

To this, senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for the speaker, said: "I don't want the Speaker's discretion to be curtailed. I can inform about it tomorrow morning."

But Maninder Singh intervened to say, "We do not want to appear before the Speaker. It is a question of our safety."

In Bengaluru, Digvijaya Singh, with Karnataka Congress president D K Shivakumar, staged a sit-in in front of a resort at the outskirts of Bengaluru on not being allowed by the police to meet the 16 sitting and six former Congress MLAs from Madhya Pradesh. They were detained by the police and later released.

The Congress leaders claimed the MLAs wanted to talk to them but they were being prevented with their phones being taken away. Bengaluru rural superintendant of police, Bheemashankar Guled, denied the claim and said the rebel MLAs had sought police protection and told the police that they don't want to meet Singh or any other Congress leader.

Digvijaya Singh told reporters that BJP MLA Arvind Bhadoria and another ruling party MP, whom he did not name, were holding the rebel MLAs captive. "Why can't I meet my own party MLAs, my voters (for the RS polls), my own party men. What is the BJP doing in-between?" he asked.

The rebellion in the Congress dovetailed with the departure from the party of senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who then joined the BJP, which has fielded him as one of its candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections from Madhya Pradesh.

In videos released after Singh's sit-in outside the hotel, the rebel MLAs claimed that they had never received respect from the former chief minister. One of them, Imrati Devi, said, "My leader is Jyotiraditya Scindia. It's Digvijaya Singh who destroyed the Congress. I don't want to remain in such a Congress which has Digvijaya Singh in it."

In Bhopal, chief minister Kamal Nath said, "Digvijaya Singh was not allowed to have a talk with the MLAs citing a security risk despite the fact the MLAs are under protection of 500 police personnel of Karnataka. Is Digvijaya Singh a national threat?"

He reiterated that his government had proved its majority several times in the House and challenged the opposition to introduce a no-confidence motion against his government. This was minutes after the state cabinet decided to create three new districts in the state in a sop to legislators who have been demanding them.