Madras HC: No floor test in Tamil Nadu till further orders

Chennai: While restraining the Tamil Nadu government from holding an Assembly floor test until further orders, the Madras high court on Wednesday directed the authorities not to hold byelections to any of the 18 Assembly constituencies that became vacant after the disqualification of 18 MLAs by the Speaker.

A batch of petitions, including from the 18 MLAs belonging to the T.T.V. Dhinakaran group who were disqualified, and the other petition filed by the DMK seeking a floor test, came up for hearing before Justice M. Duraiswamy on Wednesday. The judge passed an interim order stating that there shall not be any election notification for conducting polls for the 18 Legislative Assembly constituencies pursuant to the Speaker’s order of September 18, 2017 — which is the subject matter in the writ petitions — until the further orders of the court. The judge has posted the matter for a final hearing on October 4.

The judge also directed the authorities not to conduct a floor test for the vote of confidence until further orders. Earlier, on September 14, the judge had stayed the conduct of the floor test until September 20 on a plea from the Dhinakaran group MLAs.

Senior lawyers Salman Khurshid, Kapil Sibal, Dushyant Dave, C.Aryama Sundaram and C.S. Vaidyanathan appeared before the judge. Aryama Sundaram appeared for the Speaker and A.L. Somayaji and Vaidyanathan for the chief minister, Rakesh Diwedi for the governor and Subramania Prasad for the Tamil Nadu government.

The proceedings were held in the packed court hall as over 100 advocates remained outside. Beginning at 11.25 am, the proceedings went on for two hours.

Dushyant Dave, counsel for the 18 MLAs, submitted that on August 12 a group of 12 MLAs including O. Panneerselvam had voted against the present chief minister. A person who voted against the CM earlier had been given the deputy CM post. But the Speaker had not issued notice against them so far. The 18 MLAs had not gone out of the party voluntarily and their action doesn’t attract disqualification, he argued.

Mr Dave said he suspected the Speaker disqualified the MLAs so that if a floor test was held the present CM may succeed, which is mala fide and against the Constitution. The Speaker’s action, he argued, was subject to judicial review. “The notification is against the federal structure and somebody from Delhi is instructing,” he said.

Appearing for the CM, Mr Vaidyanathan said there was no need for elaborate arguments on the main plea as the CM had not ordered a floor test and no such situation had arisen so far. Rakesh Diwedi said the Assembly stands prorogued and the CM has not so far called a floor test.