'Justice M Sathyanarayanan to hear plea of disqualified AIADMK MLAs'

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday assigned the case relating to the disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to sidelined party leader TTV Dhinakaran, to Justice M Sathyanarayanan of the Madras High Court, following a split verdict on the matter by a division bench.

A vacation bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra and Sanjay Kishan Kaul refused to transfer the case from the Madras High Court and said that Justice Sathyanarayanan would hear and decide the pleas filed by these MLAs challenging their disqualification by the Tamil Nadu Assembly speaker.

The apex court's order came on petitions filed by some of the disqualified MLAs seeking transfer of their pleas challenging their disqualification from the Madras High Court to the top court.

Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal had on September 18 last year disqualified these 18 MLAs on the ground that they had tried to pull down AIADMK government in the state.

On June 14, a division bench of the High Court had given a split verdict on the petitions challenging the disqualification of these MLAs, a ruling that maintained status quo in the corridors of power in Tamil Nadu.

The court had said that the senior-most judge after the high court's Chief Justice would hand-pick a third judge, who will hear the matter afresh.

Following this, Justice S Vimala of the high court was appointed as the third judge to hear the matter.

The petitioners had then approached the apex court seeking transfer of their pleas from the high court to the top court, claiming apprehension of "bias".

"In the circumstances, as agreement has been expressed to appoint any judge of the Madras High Court, we consider it appropriate to assign the case to hear the matter on the differences of opinion between two judges, Chief Justice and other judge of the High Court to Justice M Sathyanarayanan who will hear the matter and take a decision as early as possible," the apex court said.

"We make it clear that this casts no aspersion on the judge who had been appointed to hear the matter, merely because we have appointed another judge of the High Court of Madras," it said.