New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday stayed all further proceedings pending before the Tamil nadu Speaker pursuant to the showcause notice issued to AIADMK rebel MLA Prabhu as to why he should not be disqualified from the Assembly for anti-party activities.
A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna after hearing senior counsel Kapil Sibal granted stay of further proceedings and issued notice to the Speaker seeking his response to the petition challenging the show cause notice and to restrain him from passing any order.
On May 6, the Bench had stayed the proceedings in respect of two others Petitioners, V.T. Kalaiselvan and Ratnasabapathy, who belonged to AIADMK, seeking stay and today the third petitioner got the relief.
The petitioner submitted that the Speaker on April 29 issued a notice to him and he apprehended that the Speaker would disqualify him even without waiting for his reply to the show cause notice. He pointed out that on April 30 the DMK, the main opposition party had served notice of no confidence against the Speaker.
While on one hand, the Speaker is acting in utmost haste in issuing notices and disqualifying legislators, however, has failed to even issue notice till date, i.e. after lapse of two years, to the Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and 10 other MLAs despite the fact that they voted against the confidence motion moved by their own party and voted contrary to the directions issued to them.
He cited a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, which held that the action of the Speaker in continuing, with one or more disqualification petitions under the Tenth Schedule, whilst a notice of resolution for his own removal, from the office of Speaker is pending, would "appear" to be unfair.
The petition said that if a Speaker truly and rightfully enjoys support of the majority of the MLAs, there would be no difficulty whatsoever, to demonstrate the confidence which the members of the State Legislature, repose in him. The office of Speaker, with which the Constitution vests the authority to deal with disqualification petitions against MLAs, must surely be a Speaker who enjoys confidence of the Assembly.
It is submitted that the actions of the Speaker in the last 2 years spoke volumes of his partisan and biased conduct and has reasonable apprehension that he would not be following the dictum of law laid down by this court and would act without jurisdiction to adjudicate and decide the disqualification petition.
For this reason the petitioner is constrained to file this Petition to protect himself from becoming victim at the hands of the Speaker and to prevent him from acting unlawfully. He submitted that just when the election result of the by election to 22 seats are due to be announced on 23rd May, the action taken by Speaker to initiate disqualification proceedings smacks of biased and partisan attitude.
He said that considering the past conduct of the Speaker in not following constitutional law, he apprehended that the Speaker might pass an order on the disqualification petition, despite having no jurisdiction due to pendency of resolution for his own removal. He sought a direction to prohibit the Speaker from taking any action pursuant to the issuance of notice to him.
