Madras High Court Rejects Petition Against AIADMK Legislators: What This Means for Tamil Nadu Politics

Court Dismisses Disqualification Petition

Chennai: The Madras High Court has ruled against a petition that called for the Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker and Assembly Secretary to begin disqualification actions against 25 rebel AIADMK members who backed Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay's confidence motion on May 13.

A division bench led by Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan also upheld Speaker J.C.D. Prabhakar’s choice to dismiss proceedings against 21 legislators after AIADMK General Secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami forgave their actions.

The court dismissed the public interest litigation brought by advocate P.V. Selvakumar from Tiruvallur, agreeing with Advocate General Vijay Narayan that the petitioner lacked the legal standing to meddle in the internal matters of the AIADMK.

Selvakumar had argued that Palaniswami had approached the Speaker on May 13, requesting the disqualification of all 25 MLAs under specific provisions of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.

The provisions in question, Paragraphs 2(1)(a) and 2(1)(b), pertain to legislators who resign from their party or vote against party directives, respectively, with a 15-day window for the party to condone such actions.

Counsel for the petitioner, K. Sakthivel, contended that since Palaniswami had explicitly sought action under both clauses, the Speaker should not have accepted his later request on May 27 to withdraw actions against 21 MLAs.

However, the court dismissed this argument. Justice Murugan noted that the allegations under Paragraph 2(1)(a) were based on the MLAs' decision to vote against the party's directive. Since the party had condoned their actions within the allowed timeframe, there were no grounds for disqualification under that clause.

The judges concluded that once the AIADMK General Secretary had formally forgiven the actions of the 21 MLAs, they could not be disqualified under either provision. The court affirmed that the Speaker acted appropriately in terminating the proceedings against the legislators, labeling the petitioner’s claims as "baseless and misplaced," and ultimately dismissed the PIL.