HC stays fresh privilege notice against Stalin, 17 others in gutkha issue

Observing that a prima facie case had been made out by the DMK MLAs while arguing their petition against the privilege notice to merit the grant of a stay until further orders, Justice Pushpa Sathyanrayana posted the plea for further hearing to September 28 when advocate general Vijay Narayan is set to file a counter to the petition moved by the DMK MLAs.

Earlier, the first bench of the Madras High Court comprising Chief Justice AP Sahi and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy had quashed the Speaker’s 2017 earlier notice over the same issue stating it suffered from foundational effects and that action of the MLAs does not violate any law.

However, the court left it to the Privilege Committee to deliberate on the issue further and examine whether the conduct would amount to a breach of privilege.

Following this, fresh notice was issued to the MLAs on the basis that the notice was wrongly worded and the issue now has to be decided regarding the MLAs’ conduct which included display without Speaker’s permission, disturbance to Assembly proceedings and causing disorder and disrepute to the Assembly.

Now, the contention largely revolves around the earlier notice missing the above-said aspects, which meant that an issue ignored earlier is being raised again with malafide intentions.