New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted time to the Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar to file his response to the petition filed by K. Pandiarajan, former minister and one of the 11 MLAs in the O. Panneerselvam group seeking a direction to quash the February 18 confidence motion moved by Edappadi K. Palaniswami as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.
Last week a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra had sought the assistance of Attorney General K.K. Venugopal in this case. However, Venugopal recused on the ground that he had given legal advice to one of the factions. Thereafter court asked the Solicitor General to assist the court.
Accordingly when a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra, Amitav Roy and A.M. Kanwilkar took up the matter, the SG in his brief submissions indicated that under Article 212 of the Constitution, the proceedings in a Legislature cannot be called in question by the court.
He said this will be his line of arguments and he will file a brief note on the submissions. The court granted time and posted the matter for further hearing on August 12, even as senior counsel Gopal Subramanium, for the petitioner cited the position prevailing under various constitutions.
In his writ petition, Mr Pandiarajan also sought a direction to quash the Speaker's decision not to conduct a secret ballot for the voting of the MLAs and to direct the Speaker to conduct a fresh vote of confidence through secret ba-llot.
