Chennai: The Madras high court has directed Edappadi K. Palanisami, the third Chief Minister sworn in the current AIADMK regime, to submit complete video recordings of Assembly proceedings when Palanisami moved the confidence vote in the House on February 18.
The Chief Minister secured trust vote in the Assembly nine days ago, following a mayhem that lasted several hours. The first bench, comprising acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G. Ramesh and Justice R. Mahadevan, has also issued notice to P Dhanapal, Speaker, both in his capacity as head of the House and in his individual capacity and directed Assembly Secretary to produce the videograph recorded in the House from the commencement of confidence motion, till the end.
The bench ordered notice when a batch of PILs including a petition filed by DMK working president and Opposition leader M.K. Stalin, president, Advocates Forum for Social Justice, advocate K. Balu and a social activist ‘Traffic’ Ramaswamy, came up for hearing on Monday.
The additional public prosecutor P. Govindarajan tried to argue that the collectors in 13 districts of southern and central Tamil Nadu have made progress in removing the trees following the earlier order of this court, the judges refused to accept it.
Meanwhile, MDMK leader Vaiko, one of the petitioners, also submitted his inspection report before the court stating that the trees have been removed only in a few places in Ramanathapuram and Sivaganga districts.
Stating that only 10 per cent of seemai karuvelam trees had been removed in the 13 southern districts, Justice Selvam observed that the collectors in some districts did not properly comply with the court order. It only shows their irresponsible attitude, the judge said.
The court also appointed advocate commissions for the remaining 19 districts in the state to closely monitor the removal work. The judges also asked the principal judges and the magistrates of munsif courts in taluks in the 19 districts to conduct inspections to assess the progress made in removal of the trees. The court also appreciated the government authority and civil society members for conducting awareness campaign to eradicate the seemai karuvelam trees, and the media for sensitising the public on this issue.
