A single judge of the Madras High Court on Friday said that he wanted to refer to a larger Bench all cases filed against the disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to sidelined leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran as well as those challenging the privilege proceedings initiated against 21 DMK MLAs, including Leader of the Opposition M.K. Stalin.
Justice K. Ravichandrabaabu said that he proposed to refer even the petitions filed by DMK whip R. Sakkarapani seeking disqualification of Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam and his team of MLAs for having defied their party’s whip and voted against the confidence motion moved by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami on February 18. He also tagged a new case filed by DMK’s Deputy whip K. Pitchandi seeking issuance of a writ of quo warranto against Mr. Panneerselvam and Tamil Culture Minister K. Pandiarajan seeking explanation as to the authority under which they were holding the posts after voting against the government.
“Since constitutional issues are involved in all these matters, I am of the view that they have to be heard by a larger Bench,” the judge told Senior Counsel Kapil Sibal, R. Shunmugasundaram and N.R. Elango representing the DMK as well as Senior Counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan representing the Chief Minister.
However, since Mr. Vaidyanathan brought it to the notice of the judge that AIADMK MLA S. Semmalai had approached the Supreme Court questioning the authority of the High Court to entertain Mr. Sakkarapani’s plea, the judge chose to adjourn all the cases to November 2 in order to wait for the decision of the apex court.
Though Mr. Sibal insisted on hearing the case, the judge said: “Judicial discipline requires us to wait.”
Expressing his mind to the lawyers representing both sides, Mr. Ravichandrabaabu said that even if the Supreme Court gave a green signal to the High Court to proceed with the hearing, he had decided to refer all the cases to a larger Bench.
