Justice M. Duraiswamy of the Madras High Court on Tuesday granted permission to 18 disqualified AIADMK MLAs to file individual writ petitions challenging their disqualifications and get the cases listed for hearing on Wednesday.
The permission was granted after Senior Counsel P.R. Raman, representing the disqualified MLAs, made a request to the judge for taking up the cases on Wednesday itself in view of the urgency involved in the issue.
After obtaining permission from the single judge, the Senior Counsel rushed to Chief Justice Indira Banerjee's court for seeking her permission too since a circular issued by the court in March states that cases filed by MPs, MLAs and Ministers should be numbered only after bringing them to the notice of the CJ.
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However, the matter could not be mentioned before the CJ since she and Justice M. Sundar, her companion judge in the first Division Bench, had begun hearing the cases listed before them for the day.
Incidentally, a writ petition filed by DMK Working President M.K. Stalin last week is also coming up for hearing before Mr. Justice Duraiswamy on Wednesday. In that case, Mr. Stalin had urged the court to order for a floor test forthwith.
Passing an interim order in that case last week, the court had restrained the Governor and Speaker from holding the floor test till Wednesday without obtaining necessary orders from the court on that day.
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The order was passed after Senior Counsel Kapil Sibal apprehended that the "minority government" would try to convert itself in to an "artificial majority" by disqualifying the rebel MLAs and then holding a floor test.