The Madras High Court on Wednesday ordered that a floor test should not be conducted in the Tamil Nadu Assembly until further orders and that elections should also not be conducted to 18 Assembly constituencies declared vacant pursuant to the disqualification of dissident AIADMK MLAs.
Justice M. Duraiswamy passed the order with the consent of Senior Counsel Ariyama Sundaram representing Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal, Senior Counsel Dushyant Dave appearing for the disqualified MLAs, Senior Counsel Kapil Sibal representing M.K. Stalin and other counsel representing Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and others.
A common interim order was passed on a batch of cases filed by the disqualified MLAs challenging their disqualification as well as a writ petition filed by Mr. Stalin seeking the conduct of floor test at the earliest. The Judge chose to pass such an order since the Senior Counsel appearing for the respondents sought time till October 4 to file their counter affidavits.
The cases were later adjourned to October 4 for final hearing.
(This news report was first published in The Hindu)