Climax of Assembly drama hinges on High Court order

When Justice M Duraiswamy commenced his sitting on Tuesday, advocate PR Raman made a mention about the disqualification of the MLAs and sought to challenge it. The judge on asking him to file the plea said he would hear it on Wednesday. 

The 18 MLAs were disqualified under antidefection and disqualification rules of 1986. The MLAs had revolted against Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami last month and offered a letter to the Governor withdrawing their support earlier extended to the incumbent Chief Minister. 

It may be noted that last Thursday, Justice Duraiswamy had barred Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal from conducting a floor test till September 20. The interim direction had come about on a plea moved by DMK’s working president MK Stalin seeking a direction to the Governor to call for a floor test under the supervision of an independent observer appointed by the court. 

Eight of the 18 disqualified MLA’s filed individual petitions at the Madras High Court on Tuesday seeking to quash the disqualification order passed by the Speaker P Dhanapal.

The eight disqualified MLA’s-Vetrivel, Parthiban, Palaniappan, Jayanthi Padmanabhan, Senthil Balaji, Murugan, Balasubramanian- have also sought for a direction to forbear the Speaker, Chief Government Whip S Rajendran, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, and the Secretary, Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly from interfering with their right as an elected representative. They also sought the court to grant an interim stay on the operation and implementation of impugned disqualification order.