Chennai: The Madras High Court today quashed the breach of privilege notices issued against DMK president M K 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.
The Bench had on 14 August reserved orders after three days of marathon hearing in the case.
Though breach of privilege proceedings were initiated against 21 DMK MLAs and all of them had approached the High Court, two legisaltors–K P P Samy and J Anbazhagan–died and another MLA Ku.Ka. Selvam was dismissed from the party and hence not represented by any counsel before the Court.
After a single Judge had granted an interim stay that no action should be taken against the notices issued to the DMK MLAs, the Legislative Assembly Secretary filed an appeal seeking to vacate the stay after which the case
was referred to a two-member Bench.
Later, the First Bench heard the final arguments for three days from 12 to 14 August and reserved the orders.
Concluding his arguments, senior advocate A L Somayaji, appearing on behalf of Privileges Committee, said the notices issued by the committee were only to maintain the dignity and decorum of the House.
‘The Speaker has an exclusive right to decide which acts of the members amount to a breach of privilege. He is the representative of all the members of the House,’ he said.
Somayaji said the Speaker had every right to insist upon the members to maintain decorum and decency by desisting from bringing inside the House a substance that had been banned in the entire State.
It was sufficient for the members to highlight the issue of alleged sale of banned substance. They need not display them in the House, he said.
‘Suppose if the members want to oppose increase in excise duty on chappals and shoes, can they carry chappals and shoes in their hands and display them in the House? Such acts amount to breach of privilege. Therefore, the Speaker
rightly referred the issue to the Committee after expressing his prima facie opinion,’ the senior counsel said.
Advocate General Vijay Narayan, representing the Assembly Secretary said ‘If a member violates such privilege and behaves in a manner they were not supposed to, the committee intervenes to decide whether such actions of the member would amount to a breach of privilege’.
Countering it, Senior DMK counsel R Shanmugasundaram said mere possession of gutka packets and taking it into assembly would not constitute breach of privilege.
The DMK MLAs had on 19 July 2017 displayed gutkha sachets in the Assembly to substantiate their claim that the banned substances were being freely available in petty shops.