Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Tuesday contended before the Madras High Court that the disqualified MLAs, owing allegiance to sidelined leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran, cannot hoodwink people by claiming that they met the Governor on August 22 and handed over a representation only to get him replaced with another individual from the treasury benches.
Senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan, representing the Chief Minister, made the submission before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar while opposing a batch of writ petitions filed by all 18 disqualified MLAs challenging the Speaker’s September 14 order disqualifying them under the anti-defection law.
The counsel pointed out that the Governor was not vested with any power to replace an individual holding the post of Chief Minister with another individual from the ruling party. Therefore, the argument that the 18 writ petitioners had lost confidence only on Mr. Palaniswami and not on the government as such would not hold water, he argued.
Mr. Vaidyanathan said that on receipt of a representation from the MLAs, the Governor could exercise only one of the three options available to him: he could make a recommendation to the President for dissolving the government under Article 356 of the Constitution; or order a floor test; or not take any action at all.
When Mr. Justice Sundar wanted to know how could a plea by the MLAs for ordering a floor test would amount to voluntarily giving up membership of the political party, to which they belong, under the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution, the senior counsel said the petitioners had insisted on “appropriate action” by a constitutional authority such as the Governor.
“They might have even asked for dissolving the government under Article 356. It can be anything. I don’t know,” Mr. Vaidyanathan said and added that there was absolutely no necessity for the writ petitioners to have approached the Governor if their grievance was only against the CM and not the government as it was being projected by them before the court.
Asserting that the petitioners had acted against political morality and propriety by approaching the Governor, the senior counsel said the Speaker had rightly drawn an inference from the activities of the 18 individuals that they were liable to be disqualified under the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on Ground of Defection) Rules of 1986.
Why OPS was spared
When the judge wanted to know why action was not initiated against Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and his team of MLAs for having voted against the government in the floor test held on February 18, Mr. Vaidyanathan said that issue was the subject matter of another batch of cases pending in the court and so the present petitioners could not cite it to impute mala fide.
Stating that Mr. Panneerselvam and his team were right in their stand that V.K. Sasikala, who was convicted in a corruption case by the highest court of the country on February 14, could not be their leader, the senior counsel said it took some time for wisdom to dawn upon the Chief Minister who subsequently concurred with the stand taken by Mr. Panneerselvam’s team.
After a marathon hearing that went on for almost the entire day, the court permitted Mr. Vaidyanathan to continue his arguments on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, when Mr. Justice Sundar asked senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, representing Chief Government Whip S. Rajendiran, as to whether any whip had been issued for the floor test held on February 18, the counsel said that he had no instructions on that issue and promised to get back to the court on that point.
