Chennai: Pointing out that the seven petitions filed by the DMK party and others relating to assembly proceedings involve constitutional issues and powers of the Speaker in such issues, the Madras high court has referred the matters to a larger Bench.
Justice K. Ravichandrabaabu, before whom the petitions came up for hearing, directed the registry to place them before Chief Justice Indira Banerjee for posting them before larger Bench for hearing.
The seven petitions included the one filed by 21 DMK MLAs including Opposition leader M.K. Stalin, challenging the privilege notices issued by the assembly speaker for displaying the banned gutka packets inside the assembly, another petition filed by DMK’s chief whip Sakkrapani, seeking to initiate disqualification proceedings against deputy chief minister O. Paneerselvam and 10 other MLAs for defying the AIADMK’s chief whip order during confidence motion and the quo warranto petitions filed by DMK MLA K. Pitchandi, which sought a direction questioning under what authority O. Paneerselvam was holding the post of Deputy CM and minister for finance and consequently disqualify him from these posts. He also sought a similar direction against the minister for Tamil official language K. Pandiarajan.
