HC registry directed to place pleas before CJ for referral to larger bench

Chennai: The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the registry to place before the chief justice a batch of petitions, including those by the disqualified Tamil Nadu MLAs, for referring them to an appropriate bench.

When the pleas came up for hearing, Justice K Ravichandra Baabu directed the registry to place them before Chief Justice Indira Banerjee.

The interim orders passed on these petitions would continue till then, the judge said.

The petitions include the ones challenging the privilege notices issued to 21 DMK MLAs and quo warranto pleas seeking to know under what authority O Panneerselvam and K Pandiarajan were continuing as deputy chief minister and minister respectively.

DMK MLA K Pichandi had filed the petitions, contending that Panneerselvam and Pandiarajan had attracted disqualification for voting against the K Palaniswami-led AIADMK government in February.

The Assembly Privileges Committee, headed by Deputy Speaker Pollachi V Jayaraman, had on August 28 issued notice to Leader of Opposition in the Assembly M K Stalin and 20 other DMK MLAs for bringing gutkha packets to the House in July.

The court had, in September, restrained the committee from passing any order on the matter until further orders.

Eighteen disqualified MLAs of the rebel AIADMK camp, headed by sidelined party leader T T V Dhinakaran, had challenged the speaker's action against them under the anti- defection law on September 18.

On October 27, Justice Baabu had opined that it would be appropriate if a larger bench heard the batch of petitions because of the "constitutionality" involved in them.

He had posted the petitions to on Thursday and said on this day, he would decide on referring the pleas to a larger bench.