Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Secretary K. Boopathy sprang a surprise before the Madras High Court on Thursday by stating that he had no submission to make in writ petitions seeking disqualification of Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and 10 AIADMK MLAs who voted against the Edappadi K. Palaniswami government during last year’s floor test.
The petitions were filed by DMK whip R. Sakkarapani and four of the 18 disqualified AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to rebel leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran.
Advocate-General Vijay Narayan submitted before a bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose that two of the 10 MLAs – S. Semmalai and K. Manickam – had filed an application before the Supreme Court last year to get the current writ petitions transferred to the apex court.
Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, representing the two MLAs, argued that a larger Bench of the Supreme Court was already seized of an issue related to the authority of courts to direct the Speaker of a Legislative Assembly to initiate disqualification proceedings against MLAs, and hence, these writ petitions should be transferred and tagged along with that case pending in the apex court.
However, appearing for the petitioners, senior counsels Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Amarendra Sharan and Kapil Sibal opposed it.
Direction to the Speaker
They had given an undertaking before the Supreme Court that they shall not insist upon the High Court to issue such a direction to the Speaker and instead amend their prayer.
After recording the submission, the apex court disposed of the transfer application with a direction that the High Court should not take up the plea to issue a direction to the Speaker.
Subsequently, an application was filed by the petitioners to amend the prayer which now urged the High Court to directly disqualify Mr. Panneerselvam and his supporters without issuing a direction to the Speaker.
Pointing out that the amendment was yet to be ordered by the court, the A-G said: “The Assembly Secretary’s submission is that there is really no prayer, as on date, in these petitions and so there is no necessity for him to make any submissions.” He insisted on hearing the amendment application before going into the merits of the main case.
