Setback for Dhinakaran as Madras HC upholds disqualification of 18 TN MLAs

In June, the Madras High Court had delivered a split verdict in the case relating to disqualification of 18 MLAs, an order that will allow the present status quo to continue

Justice M Sathyanarayanan, the Supreme Court-appointed third judge of Madras High Court, on Thursady upheld the validity of Tamil Nadu Speaker’s September 18, 2017, order disqualifying 18 AIADMK MLAs in Tamil Nadu. 

The Ruling faction of AIADMK, led by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edapaddi K Palaniswami hailed the high court's decision, while Dhinkaran said that he would discuss further course of action with the 18 MLAs.

In September last year, while the then Chief Justice of the Madras HC Indira Banerjee had declined to interfere with the order of the Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal, owing to her allegiance to the sidelined AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, the other judge on the two-judge Bench, Justice M Sundar, had set aside the Speaker's order on the ground that it was hit by "perversity, non-compliance with the principles of natural justice, malafides and violation of constitutional mandate". 

He had said that since there was a disagreement, the case should be transferred to a third judge. With Chief Justice herself involved in the matter, she was of the view that it would not be appropriate for her to nominate a third judge. 

Hence, the next senior-most judge Satyanarayana was named as the third judge.

In June, the court had also said that till the case was finally decided, the interim order issued earlier that barred holding of by-elections and floor test in the Assembly continue to be valid. 

In the 234-member Assembly, the AIADMK has 116 members followed by the DMK with 89, Congress with 8, IUML with one, one independent, the Speaker and 18 vacant seats. Apart from this, there is also a nominated member.

The case filed by the disqualified legislators against the Speaker's action is pending before the High Court since September 2017. The court had reserved the judgement on January 24. 

Why were the MLAs disqualified?

Last August, a total of 19 AIADMK legislators had submitted a letter to the then Governor CV Rao withdrawing support to Chief Minister Palaniswami. Following which Chief Government Whip S Rajendiran appealed before Speaker P Dhanapal to disqualify the MLAs, saying their actions amounted to voluntarily giving up their party membership. Dhanapal suspended the MLAs using his powers under Schedule 10 of the Constitution.

Subsequently, one of the MLAs, STK Jakkaiyan, switched over to the Palaniswami camp and Dhanapal disqualified the remaining 18 lawmakers.

The Opposition and Dhinkaran faction have been alleging that all these days a minority government was allowed to function taking all major policy decisions.