A battery of designated senior counsel representing the petitioners as well as respondents in a batch of cases filed in the Madras High Court in connection with the Centre’s nomination of three MLAs to Puducherry Legislative Assembly concluded their oral arguments on Friday and the court adjourned the case to Wednesday for filing of written arguments.
The first Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar directed the High Court Registry to list the batch of cases under the caption “For Direction” on Wednesday when the judges would decide whether to pass any interim order in the case or reserve their judgment since the matter had been heard in full.
Representing the Assembly Secretary, senior counsel AR.L. Sundaresan argued that the nominations had been made by invoking Section 3(3) of the Government of Union Territories Act of 1963 which states that the “Central Government may nominate not more than three persons, not being persons in the service of Government, to be members of the Legislative Assembly.”
No mention
Pointing out that the 1963 Act does not define the term “Central Government,” he said that the definition would have to be necessarily borrowed from Section 3(8)(b)(iii) of the General Clauses Act of 1897 where the expression had been defined to mean the administrator (Lieutenant Governor) in relation to the administration of a Union Territory.
In the present case, the Centre had admitted in its counter affidavit that the nominations of Bharatiya Janata Party’s Puducherry unit chief V. Saminathan, its treasurer K.G. Shankar, and educationist S. Selva Ganapathy had been made by the Union Home Ministry on its own and not on the recommendations of the Lieutenant Governor (LG), he said.
Explaining his case, he said that although reading the 1963 Act along with the 1897 Act would given an impression as if the nominations could be made by the L-G on her own, a combined reading of Articles 239, 239A and 240 of the Constitution would show that it was the Council of Ministers which should recommend the names to the L-G.
When Mr. Justice Sundar wanted to know under which provision of law the Speaker had refused to accept the nominations, Mr. Sundaresan said: “He (Speaker) is the master of the House. The Speaker has the authority to decide if the nominations had been made by the proper authority or not.”
Replying to his submissions, Additional Solicitor-General G. Rajagopalan said the three individuals had been nominated to the Assembly by the government and not by any political party.
Therefore, from the point of view of the Centre, “they would be representing only the Government of India in the Assembly and not any party,” he said.
Referring to the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules of 1961, he said through the rules, the President had allocated the portfolio related to administration of union territories to the Union Home Ministry and therefore the latter was perfectly right in having issued a gazette notification on July 4 nominating three MLAs to Puducherry Assembly.
