CHENNAI: The Assembly Speaker and Secretary are making attempts to tamper with the records relating to the motion of confidence proceedings in the House on February 18, R Shanmugasundaram, senior counsel for MK Stalin, DMK working president and Leader of the Opposition, alleged on Tuesday.
The allegation was made by the counsel when the first bench of Acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh and Justice R Mahadevan was deciding to take up Stalin’s PIL challenging the Speaker’s decision, on Wednesday (February 22).
When the bench commenced its proceedings this morning, Shanmugasundaram pointed out that the court had on Monday assured to hear the PIL today, but unfortunately the plea was not in the cause list. He then urged the judges to take up the PIL at least after lunch hour considering the fact that they have specific information about attempts being made to tamper with Assembly records.
However, the bench said the PIL would be heard as the first item on Wednesday morning, since the court is scheduled to rise early on Tuesday due to a meeting organised by the High Court to condole the death of former Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir.
In his PIL, Stalin prayed the court to declare the decision of the Speaker in accepting the vote of confidence moved by Chief Minister K Palanisamy as illegal, null and void. He also prayed the court to direct the Speaker to conduct the secret ballot on the confidence motion afresh, without evicting MLAs of any political party, and under the observation of a Monitoring Committee comprising Secretary to Tamil Nadu Governor, Chief Secretary, and an official in the rank of Chief Electoral Officer from the Election Commission.