Chennai: Senior advocate V. Giri, appearing for the AIADMK whip side, argued in the High Court that it is not legally acceptable for the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly to have accepted the resignation letters of AIADMK MLAs without conducting any inquiry into whether they had resigned of their own free will.
Ignoring the AIADMK whip’s order, those elected as AIADMK MLAs, including Madurantakam Maragatham Kumaravel, Dharapuram Sathyabama, Perundurai Jayakumar, Ambasamudram Isakki Subbiah, Viralimalai C. Vijayabaskar, and Karur M.R. Vijayabaskar, acted in support of the TVK government in the Legislative Assembly. Following this, AIADMK submitted a letter to the Speaker requesting action against them under the anti-defection law.
In this situation, six people, including Maragatham Kumaravel and Vijayabaskar, resigned from their posts and joined TVK. After the Speaker accepted their resignations as well, those constituencies were declared vacant.
While the anti-defection proceedings were pending, AIADMK whip S.S. Krishnamoorthy and others had filed petitions in the Madras High Court seeking to quash the Speaker’s order accepting the resignation letters of AIADMK MLAs.
These cases came up for hearing again yesterday before a bench comprising Chief Justice S.A. Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arulmurugan.
At that time, senior advocate V. Giri, appearing on behalf of AIADMK whip Agri Krishnamurthy, argued, “In the confidence motion brought by the TVK government in the Legislative Assembly on May 13, these MLAs, who voted in support of the ruling party in violation of the AIADMK whip’s directive, joined TVK within 30 minutes of resigning from their party posts.
The Speaker should have conducted an inquiry into whether they resigned their posts of their own free will and only then taken appropriate action.
However, it is not legally acceptable for the Speaker to have accepted their resignation letters without conducting any inquiry while anti-defection proceedings were pending against them. Nothing to that effect has been mentioned in the reply affidavit filed by the Secretary of the Legislative Assembly either.
On the contrary, the Speaker accepted their resignations without conducting any inquiry only because he had prior information that the AIADMK MLAs who were resigning were going to immediately join the TVK. This can only be seen as a major effort by the ruling party to bring MLAs from another party into its own ranks in order to prove its majority strength.
Even after a notice was sent to the Speaker in this regard, there was no response on his behalf. In this matter, the Assembly Secretary has filed a counter affidavit. Unlike the Governor, the Speaker does not enjoy any legal immunity. Therefore, the counter affidavit filed by the Assembly Secretary in this case should not be accepted as one filed on behalf of the Speaker. Furthermore, it is the Speaker who must explain on what basis the resignation letters were accepted,” he argued.
Since the arguments on the AIADMK side were not completed, the judges have adjourned the hearing of the case to Aug. 17.