Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana of the Madras High Court on Wednesday reserved her verdict on a batch of new writ petitions filed by DMK president M.K. Stalin and 17 other MLAs challenging fresh show cause notices issued to them on September 7 in connection with the 2017 breach of privilege proceedings.
The judge told Advocate General (A-G) Vijay Narayan and senior counsel R. Shunmugasundaram, N.R. Elango and Amit Anand Tiwari, representing the petitioners, that she shall pronounce interim orders on the batch on Thursday itself since that was the day fixed by the Committee of Privileges for the MLAs to submit their replies.
During the course of arguments, when the judge expressed her mind that she was inclined to stay all further proceedings, the A-G opposed any such move and sought grant of short period of time for filing of a counter affidavit.
He said nothing adverse would happen since the Committee of Privileges had no power to take any action against the MLAs.
He said the committee’s recommendations had to be placed before the House and only after deliberations, any action would be initiated.
“It is not as if the Assembly is going to assemble tomorrow or the day after and take action against the petitioners. Therefore, there is no need for any interim orders in favour of them,” he argued.
