Chennai: DMK president M K Stalin today welcomed the High Court’s decision of cancelling the notice issued by the Privilege Committee of the Tamilnadu Assembly against his party legislators in the gutka issue.
He said that his is a historical judgement which upholds democracy. “It is said that illegal sales od gutka still continues in the State despite the ban. The gutka packets were taken inside the Assembly to show the inefficiency and corruption. However the notice was issued hiding the truth,” he said.
He further said though the Assembly Speaker failed to protect the rights of the Legislators, the Court has saved it legally.
“I also thank and congratulate the party advocates R Shanmugasndaram and N R Elango who got us this judgement,” he said.
The Madras High Court today quashed the breach of privilege notices issued against Stalin and 17 other MLAs of his party for waving banned gutka packets in the Tamilnadu Assembly in July 2017 and ordered issuance of fresh notices to them.
Passing orders on the writ petitions filed by Stalin, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in the House, and 17 legislators challenging the privilege proceedings initiated against them, the First Bench comprising Chief Justice
A P Sahi and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy quashed the notice issued by the privileges committee citing some basic errors.
The Court, however, ruled that fresh notices could be issued to the MLAs by the privileges committee and the MLAs could appear before it and present their arguments.