Close on the heels of the Supreme Court having ordered notice to Speaker P. Dhanabal in a case for disqualifying 11 AIADMK MLAs, the Madras High Court on Friday decided to hear on August 12 a batch of cases filed by 21 DMK legislators challenging the privilege proceedings initiated against them in 2017.
Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy fixed the date for commencement of final hearing at the request of Advocate General Vijay Narayan, who said the term of the Assembly was scheduled to get over by May next and hence there was an urgency in hearing the cases pending for the last three years.
Appearing on behalf of the Assembly Secretary and the Committee of Privileges of Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, the A-G and the government Pleader V. Jayaprakash Narayanan told the court that the proceedings against the 21 DMK MLAs had been stalled due to an interim order passed by the court on September 7, 2017.
Although the first Division Bench was inclined to hear the cases on July 28 and dedicate the entire day for the hearing, senior counsel R. Shunmugasundaram and N.R. Elango, representing the 21 DMK legislators, who included the Leader of the Opposition M.K. Stalin, urged the court to fix a later date since they had to engage advocates from Delhi.
The privilege proceedings were initiated against the DMK legislators for having displayed the banned gutkha sachets in the Assembly on July 19, 2017 in support of their claim that the product was freely available in petty shops. The Speaker referred the issue to the Committee of Privileges, headed by Deputy Speaker Pollachi V. Jayaraman.
The Committee issued show-cause notices to the 21 MLAs on August 28. After seeking 15 days’ time to reply to the notices, the legislators moved the Madras High Court challenging the action initiated against them. When the cases were listed before Justice M. Duraiswamy on September 7, 2017, senior counsel Kapil Sibal appeared for the petitioners.
The judge restrained the committee from proceedings further after Mr. Sibal claimed that the timing of the show-cause notices would prove that the real intention behind it was to suspend the legislators from attending the Assembly sessions and consequently prevent them from participating in a possible trust vote against the government.
Though the gutkha sachets were displayed in the Assembly on July 19, the show-cause notices were issued only after 19 AIADMK MLAs gave a letter to the Governor on August 22 expressing no confidence in Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and after Mr. Stalin placed a demand for a floor test on August 26, he pointed out.