The Madras High Court today reserved its order on pleas seeking disqualification of deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam and 10 other AIADMK MLAs for voting against the motion of confidence moved by chief minister K Palaniswami in February last year. A bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose reserved orders, without specifying any date, after recording the written arguments submitted by the petitioners, the Assembly speaker, the chief minister, Paneerselvam and other MLAs. DMK whip Sakkarapani and four disqualified MLAs loyal to rebel AIADMK leader T T V Dhinakaran have filed petitions seeking the disqualification of Panneerselvam, then a rebel leader, and others as MLAs for voting against Palaniswami government during the vote of confidence on February 18, 2017. They contended that by voting against the trust motion the 11 MLAs, including Panneerselvam, had violated the whip issued by the ruling party and hence attracted disqualification under the anti-defection law. Panneerselvam had opposed the pleas saying the whip was issued only to the 122 MLAs who were staying in a resort then and not to his erstwhile group. Following the rebellion by Panneerselvam, the AIADMK had kept its 122 MLAs at the resort near here, and they were brought to the Assembly for the trust vote which was eventually won by Palaniswami by a margin of 122-11. Palaniswami-led group later revolted against party leaders V K Sasikala and Dhinakaran. The groups led by Panneerselvam and Palaniswami later merged and the Election Commission alloted the party symbol to them, ignoring the claim of the faction led by Dhinakaran. The four disqualified MLAs loyal to Dhinakaran had earlier filed a petition with the speaker before he disqualified them and 14 others. The court had last month reserved its orders on the pleas moved by the 18 disqualified MLAs seeking to set aside the order of the speaker disqualifying them under the anti-defection law after they sided with Dhinakaran. The decision of the high court in these petitions are keenly awaited.
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