Gutkha: Second notice to DMK MLAs also quashed

Gutkha (chewing tobacco) has been banned in Tamil Nadu since 2013. Senior advocate R Shanmugasundaram, who represented the Opposition MLAs, said Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana quashed the notices issued by the Assembly committee. 

In August last year, a bench of then Chief Justice AP Sahi and Justice Senthil Kumar Ramamoorthy, while setting aside the earlier notices issued to the DMK legislators, had however, granted liberty to authorities for initiation of the privilege proceedings afresh. 

Subsequently, notices were issued for a second time in September 2020, on the eve of the then Assembly session. Shanmugasundaram told reporters it was submitted in the court that the MLAs’ intention was to highlight the availability of gutkha despite a government ban and therefore there was “no basis” for the notices. 

Meanwhile, Stalin said in a Facebook post that the DMK MLAs had displayed the gutkha sachets to “point out” at its free availability. 

DMK president MK Stalin on Wednesday promised complete ban on the sale of gutkha products after his party returns to power. 

Reacting to Madras High Court order quashing the notices issued by the Assembly privilege committee, Stalin referred to an earlier notice stayed by the court and said the government could have shown the same haste in preventing the sale of gutkha products. 

Claiming that gutkha sale was still continuing, the DMK president said, “Reign of the gutkha government would end soon. Sale of gutkha will be completely banned.” Accusing the AIADMK regime of permitting sale of gutkha and attempting to usurp the rights of MLAs, Stalin also justified that his party MLAs had exercised their democratic right and brought gutkha products to the Assembly based on their democratic right to highlight the widespread sale of such products in the state. 

Gutkha was the talking point of state politics a few years ago when the CBI had raided the house of the state Health Minister and a top cop in the state then. The issue hogged limelight again last month when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a charge sheet against several persons, including former AIADMK minister BV Ramana in connection with a money laundering probe into the alleged gutkha scam in the state. The issue was so prominent that the DMK led opposition had used gutkha as a prefix to describe a few Ministers in the incumbent AIADMK regime.