SC takes up disqualification plea against OPS

CHENNAI: A plea filed by Tamil Nadu opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) seeking disqualification of Deputy Chief Minister O. Pannerselvam (OPS) and 10 other MLAS will be taken up by the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday.

This is an appeal against the Madras High Court’s rejection in April this year of their petition demanding disqualiication of the 11 ruling ADMK members who deied a party whip and voted against the Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) government in February 2017.

The appeal is being taken up at a time when the Madras High Court has upheld the disqualiication of 18 dissident ADMK MLAS who had demanded a change of chief minister.

If the 11 MLAS, who later joined the EPS bandwagon, are disqualiied now, it would deal a heavy blow to the chief minister and may even lead to the crash of the government. EPS on Monday held a hurried meeting with Panneerselvam, ministers Pandiarajan, Munusamy, Vaidyalingam and many other key ofice-bearers of the ADMK at its headquarters in Royapettah.

The meeting focused on the case against OPS and others in the apex court, ADMK sources said.

OPS and 10 of his supporting MLAS had supported a no-conidence motion against Palaniswami on Feb.19, 2017. A few ADMK MLAS then asked the Speaker to disqualify them, but he ignored it as a compromise was being worked out between Palaniswami and Pannerslevam.

The DMK then iled a petition in the Madras High Court to disqualify the 11 MLAS, technically on the grounds that they went against the orders of the party whip.

DMK whip R. Sakkarapani, who iled the writ petition in September that year in the Madras High Court, said the MLAS violated the Tamil Nadu Legislative Disqualiication on Ground of Defection Rules of 1986.

He also pointed out that the ADMK did not condone that. The 1986 Rules stipulate that the MLAS have to inform the Speaker within 30 days of the vote if they had been condoned by their party.

OPS and his MLAS maintained that that there was no whip issuing directions. The DMK countered the claims by providing the court with a copy of the afidavit iled by OPS to the Election Commission of India where he says that a whip had, indeed, issued instructions telling the party to vote in favour of Palaniswami.