The Madras High Court on Thursday insisted on production of an order reportedly passed by Puducherry Legislative Assembly Speaker on November 12 rejecting the Centre’s nomination of three individuals to the Assembly.
The court pointed out that the three nominees had filed writ petitions challenging only a consequential communication sent to them by the Assembly Secretary on November 13 and not the Speaker’s order.
Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar said a perusal of the Speaker’s order was essential to decide the list before the court since the communication under challenge had made a reference to a decision having been taken by the Speaker on November 12. The judges wanted all related files to be produced in the court on Friday when senior counsel AR.L. Sundaresan would be making his submissions on behalf of the secretary. “You have to produce it. It is a writ of certiorari (the proceedings in which a superior judicial authority reviews the validity of orders passed by a forum below it),” the Chief Justice said. Earlier, Mr. Justice Sundar said: “The Assembly Secretary, in his communication, refers to a decision having been taken by the Speaker. We don’t know what is that decision. We would like to know that. Please produce the files tomorrow.”
When senior counsel P.H. Arvindh Pandian contended that the Speaker of an union territory was only a statutory authority and not a constitutional authority like the Speaker of a Legislative Assembly of a State and therefore he lacked the authority to overturn the nominations made by the Centre, the judge said: “We would like to see the Speaker’s order first before testing it on the principles that you are advancing.”
Floor strength
Further pointing out that the law does not prevent nominees to the Puducherry Assembly from being members of political parties, the judge wanted to know whether such nominees, after their entry into the Assembly, would add to the strength of their party on the floor of the House and axiomatically become controlled by the whip.
To this, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) G. Rajagopalan said he would examine the issue in detail and get back on Friday.
In the present case, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Puducherry unit chief V. Saminathan, its treasurer K.G. Shankar, and educationist S. Selva Ganapathy had been nominated to the Assembly by the Union Home Ministry through a gazette notification on July 4.
During the course of hearing, the judges were told that the Puducherry Assembly had 15 MLAs belonging to the Congress, eight from the AINRC, four from the AIADMK, two from the DMK and one independent.
Another interesting issue cropped up in the course of hearing of the case with Mr. Justice Sundar wanting to know under what authority was the administrator of Puducherry referred to as Lieutenant Governor.
The judge pointed out that Article 239 of the Constitution states that every union territory shall be administered by the President through an “administrator” to be appointed by him with such designation as he may specify.
The judge wanted to know if there was any notification designating the administrator of Puducherry as Lieutenant Governor since all government communications had used the latter expression.
Replying to it, the ASG produced a copy of a notification and said the administrators of Andaman and Nicobar, Delhi and Puducherry alone were referred to as Lieutenant Governors whereas those of all other union territories were just referred as administrators.
Senior counsel V.T. Gopalan, representing one of the public interest litigation petitioners who had challenged the three nominations by the Centre, informed the court that till recently, the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry was administered oath of office only by the Chief Judge of Puducherry and not by the Chief Justice of Madras High Court.
“It is only for the past two or three swearing in ceremonies that the Chief Justice of this court has been administering the oath to the Puducherry Governor,” he added.
