2017 floor test: HC to hear Stalin’s petition on Nov 10

The first bench comprising Chief Justice AP Sahi and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy fixed the date for further hearing based on the request made by Stalin’s counsel R Neelakandan that few other connected writ petitions had to be listed along with Stalin’s writ petition.

Clarifying the bench’s query about the pending cases on the issue, he said a writ of quo warranto was pending against Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and Minister K Pandiarajan as they had voted against the confidence motion moved by the Chief Minister but were later inducted into the cabinet based on a truce struck between both the factions.

He also informed the bench that the quo warranto had been moved seeking to remove them from office as they cannot be part of the government against which they voted. Conceding to the request to fix any date for the hearing after the Navaratri holidays in October and that the Advocate General Vijay Narayan had agreed for an adjournment, the bench noted that it would examine whether the cases cited by Stalin’s counsel were connected and thus needed to be heard together. It then directed the Registry to list all the cases on November 10.

Of the four pleas listed on Tuesday, the leading matter was moved by Stalin seeking to declare the decision taken by the Speaker on February 18, 2017, in the confidence motion moved by Palaniswami as illegal and void and consequently direct the Speaker to conduct fresh floor test by holding secret ballot under the observation of a Monitoring Committee, without evicting any of the members present. Similar pleas were moved by Advocates Forum for Social Justice, ‘Traffic’ KR Ramaswamy and T Anbalagan seeking a fresh floor test by adopting a secret ballot system.