Committee sends notice to Stalin, party colleagues

The meeting which began at 5 pm lasted until 6.50 pm was chaired by Deputy Speaker Pollachi V Jayaraman and 13 other legislators. The DMK working president Stalin was not invited for the meeting since the Assembly Rules 228 debars any member who is directly or indirectly involved in the issue referred to the Committee cannot sit in the Committee. 

The other 5-DMK legislators – KS Ravichandran, K Sundar, KR Periakaruppan, U Mathivanan, and S Reghupathy, and its ally Congress Legislator S Vijayadharani, who are part of the Committee participated in the meeting. Though the 3 pro-TTV Dinakaran legislators did not attend the meeting, the rest of the AIADMK legislators took part in the meeting, giving a working majority for the ruling dispensation in the Committee. 

The Committee reviewed the video recordings and enumerated the list of the MLAs who were armed with gutkha sachets. 

As many as 21 MLAs including Stalin were reportedly found to be carrying the banned tobacco products and they were subsequently ordered notices.

On July 19, the DMK legislators led by Stalin staged a walk out after allegedly displaying the banned gutkha sachets charging that such products were freely available in the State.