CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday reserved its orders on a petition moved against the fresh show-cause notice issued to DMK chief MK Stalin and 17 other MLAs on September 7 by the Tamil Nadu Assembly Privileges Committee for displaying gutka sachets inside the House in 2017.
Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana, after hearing the arguments made by both the State and the DMK, reserved its orders without mentioning any date. On September 24, while admitting the petitions, the judge granted an interim stay against the operation of the notices till further order.
Aggrieved, the privileges committee and Secretary of the Assembly moved an appeal before the First Bench of the court headed by Chief Justice AP Sahi. During the course of the arguments, DMK senior advocates R Shanmugasundaram, NR Elango and Amit Anand Tiwari contended that the fresh notice was not necessary and also the First Division Bench recently in its order observed “foundational error” in the earlier notice served by the privileges committee in 2017.
On September 7, the committee issued fresh notices to the 18 MLAs as the First Bench granted liberty to the committee to commence the proceedings afresh if it feels so. Aggrieved, the DMK MLAs moved the High Court once again. State Advocate-General Vijay Narayan contended that the earlier notices were issued for bringing ‘prohibited’ materials inside the House.
But, the present notice is for bringing gutka packets and displaying them in the Assembly without prior permission of the Speaker, he added. The State also argued that judicial review of such issues comes only after a final decision is taken by the committee. The entire inquiry is still pending against the DMK MLAs by the committee and no decision has been rendered by it, except for calling an explanation, the State added.