Prabhakar said that his decisions were confined to the Assembly based on official correspondence and were independent of external political activities.
Chennai: Initiating legal proceedings against the four former AIADMK MLAs who resigned their posts to join the ruling TVK, Assembly Speaker J C D Prabhakar has issued notices to them seeking their explanation on the charges against them in the petition filed by the AIADMK seeking their disqualification under the anti-defection law.
Speaking to the media on Friday at the Secretariat, the Speaker said the four former MLAs - Maragatham Kumaravel, S Jayakumar, P Sathyabama and Esakki Subaya – had been issued notices and given seven days to provide an explanation.
Prabhakar said that his decisions were confined to the Assembly based on official correspondence and were independent of external political activities.
The AIADMK had objected to the Speaker accepting the resignation of the four MLAs who had voted in favour of the TVK in the vote of confidence in the Assembly on May 13, since the party had already sought the invocation of the anti-defection law against them.
Though the four were part of the rebel group of 25 MLAs from the AIADMK, disqualification proceedings against the other 21 MLAs were dropped after a patch up in the party.
AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami had sought the dropping of the proceedings against the 21 rebel MLAs, other than the four who resigned the posts and switched over to the TVK, and the Speaker had accepted the request.
Palaniswami withdrew the complaint against the 21 MLAs after rebels, led by former State minister S P Velumani, called on Palaniswami and agreed to function as a united AIADMK.
But the four MLAs, who have given up their posts, have joined the TVK before that by meeting State Minister Aadhav Arjuna in the Secretariat soon after submitting their resignations with the Speaker.
The four MLAs had quit their MLA posts with the hope of getting nominated by the TVK to contest the by-elections from the same constituencies that had elected them in the general elections – Jayakumar from Perundurai, Maragatham Kumaravel from Madurantakam (SC), Sathyabama from Dharapuram (SC) and Esakki Subaya from Ambasamudram.
