The Madras High Court, on Wednesday, permitted Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Secretary and its Privileges Committee to file writ appeals challenging a single judge’s order which set aside fresh show cause notices issued to DMK president M.K. Stalin and many other legislators last year for having displayed Gutkha sachets in the House in July 2017.
Justices R. Subbiah and Sathi Kumar Sukumara Kurup allowed petitions moved by the appellants to dispense with the production of certified copies of the single judge’s order and instead permit the filing of the appeals on the basis of web copies. The appeals had been filed against orders passed by Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana on February 10.
Allowing a batch of writ petitions filed by the legislators, the judge set aside the fresh show cause notices issued to them by the Committee of Privileges in September 2020. The original notices issued in 2017 were quashed by a Division Bench of the Court in August 2020 with liberty to proceed further if the committee was still of the view that any of the privileges of the House had been breached.
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On the strength of such liberty, the Committee had issued fresh notices which were set aside by the single judge and hence the present appeals.