O Panneerselvam group moves Supreme Court to quash confidence motion

New Delhi: K. Pandiarajan, former minister and one of the 11 MLAs in the O. Panneerselvam group, on Friday moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction to quash the February 18 confidence motion moved by Edappadi K. Palanisami as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

In a writ petition, 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 ballot.

He submitted that the entire proceeding dated February 18, 2017, was conducted in a highly arbitrary and partisan manner, in utter violation of democratic norms and principles of natural justice. The request for secret ballot to decide the confidence motion was rejected by the Speaker without any justifiable basis especially when there were specific averments and complaints that the MLAs belonging to the AIADMK (including some of the MLAs from the group of 11 MLAs headed by the O .Panneerselvam, former Chief Minster - "OPS faction") were placed under virtual house arrest and extreme duress. Also, he said their affirmative vote during the proceedings on February 18, 2017, were obtained under the threat of force, fraud and coercion.

The Speaker also did not accede to the reasonable request for postponing the proposed confidence vote to a more conducive date, so as to enable the captive MLAs to visit their constituencies and interact with the general public at large before participating in the voting process, in order to enable the MLAs to gauge the public mood, preserve and uphold the principles of democratic governance in the state.

The undue haste in which the proceedings took place, and the complete lack of transparency and propriety shown by the Speaker in continuing the voting process, and that too not through Secret Ballot, is arbitrary, mala fide, and ought to be quashed.

He said that despite pro-tests by O. Panneerselvam, who beseeched upon the Speaker to consider secret ballot to preserve the principles of democratic governance in the State.

Furthermore, two members of the AIADMK, K. Pandiarajan and S. Semmalai, also made their submissions as to the threats that were being issued to members who had expressed dissent with the confidence motion. He said the said proceedings are also vitiated by the fact that the MLAs of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam were forcibly evicted from the House by the Speaker at 2 pm on February 18, through the marshalls of the House, and the Speaker declared the motion passed in favour of Palanisami.

The confidence vote, being an opinion making process, mandates the presence of the Opposition who can then proceed to persuade the members to vote pro or against the resolution.

However, this critical democratic element was completely destroyed in the impugned proceedings herein, where the confidence vote was conducted and concluded, in the absence of the DMK members. He quoted several parliamentary and legislative precedents where voting has taken place by secret ballot.

In any case, keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances in the present case, the Speaker ought to have resorted to secret ballot in order to protect the purity of democratic process. In failing to do, the Speaker has committed grave miscarriage of justice besides exposing himself to justifiable allegations of partisanship and colorable exercise of power. Hence the present writ petition.