Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal had on September 18 last year disqualified 18 AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran.
A third judge of the Madras High Court will today deliver the verdict on the case of disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs, deciding the fate of these legislators as well the E Palaniswami government.
Justice M Sathyanarayanan of the Madras High Court will deliver at 10:30 am. This comes over four months after a split verdict on the issue by a division bench had maintained the status quo in the Tamil Nadu Assembly.
Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal had on September 18 last year disqualified these 18 AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran on the ground that they had tried to pull down their own party's government in the state.
On June 14, a division bench of the Madras High Court had given a split verdict on petitions challenging the disqualification of these MLAs, a ruling that maintained status quo in the corridors of power in Tamil Nadu. The bench comprising the then Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar had delivered divergent verdicts on whether the 18 MLAs deserved to be disqualified under the anti-defection law by the Speaker for approaching the Governor and seeking the removal of Chief Minister K Palaniswami.
The 18 MLAs had on August 22 last year met the then Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and conveyed that they had lost confidence in Palaniswami following which the Speaker took the decision to disqualify them.
MLAs who have been disqualified are Thangatamilselvan, R Murugan, Mariappan Kennedy, K Kathirkamu, C Jayanthi Padmanabhan, P Palaniappan, V Senthil Balaji, S Muthiah, P Vetrivel, NG Parthiban, M Kothandapani, TA Elumalai, M Rengasamy, R Thangadurai, R Balasubramani, SG Subramanian, R Sundarraj and K Uma Maheswari.
One of the dissident MLAs, STK Jakkaiyan, had later switched camps to support Palaniswami.
Here is how the verdict will affect the Palaniswami government in Tamil Nadu:
If MLAs win the case
In her 200-page order delivered on June 14, Banerjee had upheld the Speaker's decision, saying "in my opinion, the view taken by the Speaker is a possible, if not plausible view, and I am unable to hold that the said decision is any way unreasonable, irrational or perverse."
If Justice Sathyanarayanan concurs with her opinion, the 18 Tamil Nadu MLAs will remain disqualified. In this case, the strength of the 234-member Assembly will come down to 214 (two seats are already vacant). The AIADMK's number in the assembly is currently 116, excluding 18 disqualified MLAs and it may rise following the bypolls for these seats.
In this case, the verdict upholding the Speaker's decision will not affect the government for now.
If MLAs lose
Justice Sundar, in his 135-page order, had struck a dissenting note, insisting that Speaker P Dhanapal's order "deserved to be set aside on grounds of perversity, non-compliance with principles of natural justice, mala fides and violation of the constitutional mandate".
If Justice Sathyanarayanan concurs with his opinion and strikes down the Speaker's decision, the Palaniswami government will be in danger of being in minority. Dhinakaran would revive his demand of holding a floor test to vote out the AIADMK government.
The government would have 116 MLAs in 234-member assembly and if Dhinakaran faction succeeds in flipping more MLAs, it would come under immediate danger.
In any case, the verdict today is a matter of survival for the Palaniswami government.
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