Justice M. Sathyanarayanan, the Supreme Court-appointed third judge of the Madras High Court, on Thursday upheld the validity of an order passed by Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal on September 18, 2017, disqualifying 18 AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to sidelined leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran under the anti-defection law.
His decision solves the conundrum caused by a split verdict delivered on June 14 with the then Chief Justice Indira Banerjee (now a Supreme Court judge) upholding the Speaker’s order and her companion judge, Justice M. Sundar, setting it aside on multiple grounds including perversity, malafide and non compliance of principles of natural justice.
A group of disqualified AIADMK MLAs taking a dip in the Tamirabarani river in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu on Tuesday, October 23, 2018.
The third judge came to the conclusion on independent application of mind. He ultimately concurred with the view taken by Ms. Banerjee who had said: “In my opinion, the view taken by the Speaker [that the 18 MLAs had voluntarily given up membership of the AIADMK by giving representations to the Governor on August 22, 2017, withdrawing support to Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami] is a possible, if not, plausible view.”
'Speaker's decision not unreasonable'
She went on to elaborate: “I am unable to hold that the said decision [of the Speaker] is in any way unreasonable, irrational or perverse. It is well settled that when two views are possible, the High Court does not in exercise of its power of judicial review, conferred under Article 226 of the Constitution, interfere with the decision just because it prefers the other view.”
Pointing out that the writ petitioners had not stopped short of expressing no confidence on the Chief Minister but had also gone ahead and called upon the Governor to “initiate the constitutional process,” Ms. Banerjee had asked: “The question is what does this mean? What is it that the Governor could do?”
After posing the questions, she agreed with senior counsel C. Aryama Sundaram appearing for the Speaker and C.S. Vaidyanathan representing the Chief Minister that following the MLAs’ representations, the Governor could have either recommended imposition of President’s rule or called for a floor test due to which the AIADMK government would have collapsed.
'No documents on alternative CM name'
Further, stating that the 18 MLAs had not produced any document to show that they had requisitioned a meeting of the party for selection of some other individual as Chief Minister or to show that they had suggested any other alternative name, Ms. Banerjee had said intra party differences on leadership should have been sorted within the party.
Though the 18 petitioners had accused the Speaker of bias because he had failed to initiate disqualification proceedings against Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and his team of MLAs who voted against the government in the floor test held on February 18, Justice Banerjee rejected the charge.
“May be, as argued on behalf of the writ petitioners, notice should at least have been issued as soon as the disqualification petition was filed (against Mr. Panneerselvam and his team of MLAs) or shortly thereafter. However, inference of bias cannot be drawn from the omission to do so,” she had said.
