Though the court did not stay the Speaker's order, it directed against issuing a poll notification for the 18 Assembly seats, which fell vacant due to the disqualification of the dissident lawmakers
The Madras high court on Wednesday extended its stay on the conduct of a floor test in Tamil Nadu Assembly until it decides on the plea challenging the disqualification of the 18 rebel AIADMK MLAs.
The court's ruling came as a relief for the rebel legislators and the Opposition which had accused Edappadi K Palaniswami government of manufacturing majority through disqualification of the 18 legislators owing allegiance to ousted AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran.
On Monday, Speaker P Dhanapal disqualified the 18 out of the 19 MLAs for giving a representation to Governor C Vidyasagar Rao on August 22 withdrawing support to Chief Minister E Palaniswami citing corruption and protesting merger of the rebel faction led by O Panneerselvam who was inducted as deputy Chief Minister. One of the rebel MLAs shifted camps to support Palaniswami was spared by the Speaker.
Though the court did not stay the Speaker's order, it directed against issuing a poll notification for the 18 Assembly seats, which fell vacant due to the disqualification of the dissident lawmakers. After passing the interim order, Justice M Duraiswamy who heard the batch of petitions filed by eight of the 18 disqualified MLAs posted the case for a final hearing on October 4.
After the court ruling, Dhinakaran said, "Justice is on our side and we are confident that the final verdict will come in our favour." He asserted that the traitors would lose and be sent packing home. DMK which has petitioned the Court seeking a direction to order floor test for the Palaniswami government said that the court's interim order defeated the government's plan to hold the floor test after disqualifying the MLAs to manufacture majority.
Chief minister Palaniswami has the support of 114 MLAs against his party's elected 135 members in the House of 234 including one vacant seat after the rebellion by 21 MLAs loyal to Dhinakaran. With the disqualification of 18 MLAs, the strength of the assembly is reduced to 215 including Speaker thereby reducing the half-way mark to 107 MLAs to remain in power. After the disqualification, three MLAs supporting Palaniswami has spoken against the move.
Appearing for the disqualified MLAs, senior counsel Dushyant Dave argued that the disqualification was illegal as the MLAs merely gave a representation to the Governor seeking replacement of chief minister but did not withdraw support to the government. "No MLA had defected to any other party and so the penalty action against them under anti-defection law is untenable. The speaker had failed to keep in mind the Supreme Court ruling in the BS Yeddyurappa case," he said, adding that they had been unlawfully stripped of their posts only to enable the Palaniswami government to sail through confidence motion.
Recalling that the Speaker did not disqualify the 12 legislators from the O Panneerselvam camp in the party who had voted against the Palaniswami government during the floor test in February, h e suggested that the Speaker could be biased to ensure comfortable majority for Chief Minister EPS. "Speaker is not above law, and he too is bound to act within the Constitution," he said, adding that the speaker in this case had acted like a political person.
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 "Edappadi K Palanisami")
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