The Madras High Court on Wednesday ordered that a floor test should not be held in the Tamil Nadu Assembly until further orders and that elections should also not be held to the 18 constituencies declared vacant following the disqualification by the Assembly Speaker of 18 dissident AIADMK MLAs.
Passing an interim order, Justice M Duraiswamy also declined to stay the disqualification of the 18 MLAs by Speaker P Dhanapal.
The disqualification was made after the 18 MLAs, owing allegiance to ousted AIADMK deputy general secretary TTV Dhinakaran, had submitted letters to the Tamil Nadu Governor, expressing their lack of confidence in Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami. They had, however, reiterated their support to the ruling party.
The Judge was hearing petitions filed by eight of the disqualified MLAs challenging their disqualification.
In a packed hall, the Judge passed the order with the consent of senior counsel Ariyama Sundaram, who represented the Assembly Speaker, while Kapil Sibal represented the DMK’s working president MK Stalin and Dushyanth Dave appeared for the disqualified MLAs.
Two petitionsThe judge passed the order on two different petitions — disqualification of the MLAs and Stalin requesting the court to order the Governor to conduct a floor test after the AIADMK MLAs gave letters to the Governor.
The cases were later posted for final hearing on October 4.
Dhinakaran is the nephew of VK Sasikala, who is in prison over various corruption charges.