SC Agrees To Hear Legality Of Tamil Nadu CM Palaniswamy’s Trust Vote [Read Petition]

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear the legality of trust vote won by K Palaniswamy in Tamil Nadu assembly in February this year.

A bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra has asked Attorney General KK Venugopal to assist the court on this question on July 11, the next date of hearing of the case.

"Is there any provision for conducting a secret ballot vote during the trust vote in an assembly," Justice Misra asked senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, who appeared for the petitioner.

Mafoi Pandiarajan, MLA from defected O Paneerselvam group, has filed the plea against the EPS government’s trust vote.

The petition also sought a fresh trust vote with a Supreme Court observer and secret ballot.

It was claimed that MLAs were caged and pressurised to vote which was against the principle of fairness.

The bench asked whether there was provision for secret ballot during trust vote.

Subramanium replied that there was no such provision in place but no provision barring it too.

In the petition it is submitted that there are several parliamentary and legislative precedents where voting has taken place by secret ballot. In any case, keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances in the present case, the Hon’ble Speaker ought to have resorted to secret ballot in order to protect the purity of democratic process. In failing to do, the Speaker has committed grave miscarriage of justice besides exposing himself to justifiable allegations of partisanship and colorable exercise of power.

It is also submitted, that the said proceedings are also vitiated by the fact that the MLAs of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) were forcibly evicted from the House by the Speaker at 2PM on 18.02.2017, through the Marshalls of the House, and the  Speaker announced that the Motion for consideration of Majority of the Chief Minister shall be taken up at 3PM on 18.02.2017, sans the DMK Members.

“The Confidence Vote, being an opinion making process, mandates the presence of the Opposition who can then proceed to persuade the Members to vote pro or against the resolution. However, this critical democratic element was completely destroyed in the Impugned Proceedings herein, where the Confidence Vote was conducted and concluded, in the absence of the DMK Members”, states the Petition.