Disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs: Madras HC's Justice Sathyanarayan reserves judgement

Chennai, Aug 31: Justice M Sathyanarayanan of the Madras High Court on Friday reserved the judgement in the case pertaining to disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs who were disqualified on September 18 last year for siding with TTV Dinakaran.

The Supreme Court had on June 27 said that Justice M Sathyanarayanan of the Madras High Court would hear and decide the plea of 18 disqualified AIADMK MLAs.

On June 14, a division bench of the Madras High Court had given a split verdict on petitions challenging the disqualification of these legislators. The high court had delivered divergent verdicts on whether the 18 MLAs deserved to be disqualified under the anti-defection law by Speaker P Dhanapal for approaching the Governor and seeking the removal of Chief Minister K Palaniswami.

After this, the court had ruled that the senior-most judge after the high court Chief Justice would now hand-pick a third judge, who will hear the matter afresh.

Had the court quashed the disqualification of MLAs, the Palaniswami government would have been in trouble.

After the disqualification, 18 lawmakers supporting TTV Dinakaran moved Madras High Court on September 18 challenging the Tamil Nadu Speaker P Dhanapal's order. The lawmakers were then disqualified under 1986 Tamil Nadu Assembly Members party defection law.

Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal had on September 18 last year disqualified the 18 MLAs owing allegiance to side-lined party leader T T V Dhinakaran on the grounds that they had tried to pull down the AIADMK government in the state.