Justice M. Sathyanarayanan, the third judge hearing the 18 AIADMK MLAs disqualification case, adjourned hearing to Thursday since senior counsel P.S. Raman, representing six of the MLAs, could not complete his arguments on Monday. The judge requested all the senior counsel to complete their arguments on the next date of hearing.
The Supreme Court had appointed Mr. Justice Sathyanarayanan to be the tie breaker in the case since the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar had delivered a split verdict in the case on June 14 with the former upholding the disqualification order passed by Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal on September 18 and the latter setting it aside.
During the arguments on Monday, Mr. Raman contended that the Speaker’s order was subject to judicial review since it had not been passed in the Constitutional capacity of being a Speaker of the Legislative Assembly but only in the capacity of being a tribunal under the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on ground of defection) Rules of 1986.
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He contended that the Speaker’s conclusion of the 18 AIADMK MLAs having acted in cohorts with the principal Opposition party DMK had stood shattered since those MLAs had not joined the Opposition party till date. They had campaigned against that party during the R.K. Nagar bypoll and made it lose to T.T.V. Dhinakaran, he added.