CHENNAI: DMK working president and Leader of Opposition MK Stalin has moved the Madras High Court to declare as illegal, null and void, the Speaker’s decision, taken on the floor of the Assembly, on the confidence motion moved by ‘Edappadi’ K Palanisamy on February 18 last.
In his public interest writ petition filed on Monday evening, he also sought a direction to the Speaker to conduct a fresh floor test by holding secret ballot, without evicting any of the MLA, under the observation of a monitoring committee consisting of the secretary to the State Governor, Chief Secretary and an official drawn from the Election Commission of India not below the rank of Chief Electoral Officer of a State.
His interim plea sought to stay the operational value of the Speaker’s announcement, which declared ‘Edappadi’ Palanisamy as having secured 122 votes in his favour; and to preserve the video-clippings.
Earlier, Stalin’s senior counsel and DMK’s former Rajya Sabha member R Shanmugasundaram made a mention before the first bench of Acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh and Justice R Mahadevan to hear the case in the morning, as the matter involved emergency. However, the bench turned down the request and asked him to file the formal petition, which will be heard tomorrow.
Stalin contended that the Speaker ought not to have conducted the floor test with the captured MLAs, without giving them the full freedom to exercise their franchise and to reflect the mind of the public in their respective Assembly constituencies. The Speaker, totally, with a biased mind, influenced by Palanisamy to retain power in one way or other, held the floor test in an undemocratic way by total misuse and abuse of his self-declared power and ignoring the well-established parliamentary procedures.
The Speaker ought not to have conducted the voting process by forcibly evicting members of all opposition parties from the Assembly Hall, with support of the outside police force. A letter of the Assembly secretary to the Commissioner of Police, Greater Chennai, permitted nine named police officials specifically to enter the Assembly premises in Watch and Ward uniform to evict DMK members. This itself is sufficient to show the mala fide action of the Speaker, the petitioner said.
When there were continuous reasonable demands to hold a secret ballot, he, to uphold the system of democracy, ought to have allowed the same, that too, when the MLAs belonging to one group of the ruling party were kept under forcible custody in a private resort – Golden Bay Resort in Kuvathoor – and their free movements were totally restricted for over 10 days and later brought to the Assembly on February 18 without any freedom at all, the petitioner said.
Hence, the Speaker ought to have conducted secret ballot to get the exact result on the confidence motion moved by Palanisamy, that too when a thin margin was doubted between far and against, the petitioner added.