Supreme Court refuses to stay proceedings against O Panneerselvam & co
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay at this stage the proceedings pending in the Madras high court in a bunch of petitions relating to disqualification of MLAs, following the Tamil Nadu Speaker’s refusal to act on the complaints.
A three-judge Bench of Chief justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud told counsel that let the Madras high court hear the matter on November 16 as scheduled and “we will consider the issue thereafter.”
Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for S. Semmalai, AIADMK MLA for transfer of the writ petition filed by DMK seeking a direction to the Tamil Nadu Speaker to disqualify 11 MLAs of the O. Panneerselvam group for voting against the confidence motion moved by Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami in February this year, said the matter has to be heard by this court as it involved interpretation of the Constitution on the powers of the Speaker.
Rohatgi also submitted that a similar matter relating to the YSR Congress party’s demand for disqualification of MLAs of AP Assembly was still pending adjudication before a Constitution Bench. He said it would be desirable that the apex court also heard the petition filed by DMK together. Senior counsel Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for MLA Vetrivel opposed the transfer and said all the matters are to be heard by a larger bench of the high court and this court could await that decision. It was also brought to notice that an amended petition has been filed in the high court that as the Speaker is refusing to act, the HC itself should disqualify the MLAs. He also said a total of 45 petitions are pending in the HC which could not be transferred here.
In his writ petition Mr Sakkarapani, DMK MLA drew the court’s attention to the inaction of Tamil Nadu Speaker against the 11 MLAs and said it was deliberate and mala fide. He said, “The Speaker has not even issued a notice on the petition for disqualification filed on March 20 against O. Panneerselvam and 10 other MLAs of the AIADMK in accordance with provisions of the tenth schedule of the Constitution and the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly (Disqualification on ground of Defection) Rules 1986 for defying the party-line whip issued by the chief government whip S. Rajendran.”
