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Breach of privilege case against Stalin revived
The HC referred the breach of privilege proceedings initiated against the DMK leaders back to the present Privilege Committee, secretary and speaker of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly directing them to take final decision “as expeditiously as possible.”
The Madras high court on Wednesday set aside an earlier order which had quashed a show cause notice issued to chief minister MK Stalin and 17 other MLAs from the DMK, when they were Tamil Nadu’s opposition in 2017 for bringing banned gutka (chewing tobacco) sachets inside the assembly as part of their protest.
The court referred the breach of privilege proceedings initiated against the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leaders back to the present Privilege Committee, secretary and speaker of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly directing them to take final decision “as expeditiously as possible.”
The Tamil Nadu assembly secretary had moved the court against an order of a single judge in 2020 quashing the privilege notices issued to the DMK legislators when they brought in banned gutka sachets to protest over the gutka scam under the then AIADMK regime. The DMK formed the government in 2021.
Advocate general P S Raman argued for the current DMK government that the privilege notices were issued to them to safeguard the then AIADMK government from collapsing under Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) and added that it would expire once the term of the assembly was over.
A division bench of justices SN Subramaniam and C Kumarappan, who are hearing the case, said that proceedings like privilege notices do not expire and referred it back to the House. The proceedings have not reached finality, the court added.
“Undoubtedly, setting aside the ‘SCN’ (show cause notice) issued by the Privilege Committee of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly would set a bad precedent and result in opening of an avenue to many similarly placed persons to challenge ‘SCN’ relating to breach of privileges of the House by way of writ petition before the High Courts,” the bench said on Wednesday.
The high court cited various judgements of the Supreme Court to reiterate judicial restraint in matters of show cause notices. “More specifically, in issues pertaining to the conduct of Members inside the Assembly, where the scope of Judicial review is to be applied sparingly by virtue of the wordings in Articles 212 and 194(3) of the Constitution of India, the interference of the Courts at the very initial stage of issuance of ‘SCN’ is unwarranted,” the court said. The judges said they are not convinced with the single judge setting aside the show cause notices and that the proceedings must reach its logical conclusion as per the rules of the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly.
“Privileges and the powers of the Hon’ble speaker of the House would not lapse merely on account of change of Government. The notice issued by the Privilege Committee is relating to disciplinary affairs of the House. Therefore, the proceedings will not lapse merely for the reason that the opposition party turned to be the ruling party...,” the court added.
