Lawyers representing various parties in a batch of cases challenging the disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to sidelined leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran, wound up their oral arguments on Friday.
After marathon hearing of the case since November, the court has posted it to January 23 for submission of written arguments.
The first Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar passed the order after hearing arguments advanced by senior counsel P.S. Raman, on behalf of the disqualified MLAs, in reply to submissions made so far on behalf of Speaker P. Dhanapal, Chief Minister ‘Edappadi’ K. Palaniswami and Chief Government Whip S. Rajendiran.
In his reply, Mr. Raman pointed out that the Speaker’s September 14 order disqualifying the 18 MLAs, had not cited any reason for not having taken action against another team of MLAs led by the incumbent Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam for having voted against the government during the floor test on February 18.
It was only before the court that the Speaker had taken the defence that he did not act against the other group of MLAs because then a dispute between two factions of the party was pending before the Election Commission of India (ECI), which had frozen the ‘two leaves’ symbol and restrained both groups from using the name AIADMK. “Even assuming that you (Speaker) might have been right in not taking action against the OPS group of MLAs, why didn’t you apply the same yardstick to me (the 18 writ petitioners),” the senior counsel questioned.
He also said the Speaker could not wriggle out of the obligation to answer the question by simply stating that failure to take action against OPS group was the subject matter of another batch of cases pending in the court.
“They (Mr. Panneerselvam’s group of MLAs) were the ones who had been continuously backstabbing the party and the government. Just eight days before the merger (of groups led by Mr. Palaniswami and Mr. Panneerselvam), Mr. Panneerselvam had said that the government led by Mr. Palaniswami is the most corrupt government,” Mr. Raman claimed.
Further, pointing out that till November 12, there was no unified AIADMK party since the ECI was seized of a dispute between factions then known only as AIADMK (Amma) and AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma), the senior counsel wondered how the Speaker could, on September, 14 rule that the writ petitioners had voluntarily given up membership of the AIADMK.
He said the ECI’s directive restraining both the factions from using the nomenclature ‘AIADMK’ was in operation on August 22 when the 18 writ petitioners gave a representation to the Governor expressing no confidence in Mr. Palaniswami and also on September 14 when they were disqualified on the ground of defection.
Karnataka case
The senior counsel further rebutted a contention made on behalf of the Chief Minister that the Supreme Court in the famous B.S. Yedurrappa’s case had set aside disqualification of 13 Karnataka MLAs, who had made an identical representation to their Governor, only on the ground of non-compliance to principles of natural justice and nothing else. Mr. Raman asserted the apex court judgment was also an authority for the proposition that giving a representation to the Governor expressing no confidence in the Chief Minister alone and not in the government as such would not amount to voluntarily giving up membership of the political party to which the MLAs belong.
Intervening during the arguments, advocate N. Raja Senthoor Pandian, a counsel on record for the writ petitioners, referring to the incident of Mr. Palaniswami having replaced Mr. Panneerselvam as Chief Minister on February 16 with the rest of the Ministers remaining constant said that the present petitioners also wanted a similar change to happen in August. When Mr. Justice Sundar wanted to know whether the writ petitioners would not have voted against the government if a trust vote had been conducted on the basis of their representation, Mr. Raman said that he could not answer the question with a monosyllabic ‘yes’ or ‘no’,
