TIL Desk/National/Chennai/In a huge relief to the Tamil Nadu government headed by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Madras high court on Thursday upheld the June 14 order of the then Chief Justice Indira Banerjee disqualifying its 18 rebel MLAs loyal to sidelined leader TTV Dhinakaran.
An adverse judgment could have triggered a political realignment in Tamil Nadu and brought the ruling party perilously close to losing its majority in the state assembly whose effective strength is 232. Two seats are vacant. The 18 AIADMK MLAs were disqualified on September 18 last year under the anti-defection law after they met the governor and expressed loss of confidence in Chief Minister K Palaniswami.
A division bench of the court comprising Banerjee and Justice M Sundar had delivered a split verdict on June 14. Banerjee had upheld Speaker P Dhanapal’s order disqualifying them, while Sundar had passed a dissenting judgment. In view of the split verdict, Justice S Vimala was then appointed to hear the petitions afresh.
However, the apex court named Justice Sathyanarayanan, while declining to accept a prayer of the disqualified MLAs who raised apprehension of “bias” and sought to transfer the matter to the apex court. Justice Sathyanarayanan on Thursday said there was no infirmity in Dhanapal’s order which was upheld by Banerjee.
