Madras High Court Dismisses PIL Challenging Speaker's Decision on AIADMK MLAs' Cross-Voting

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation challenging the Assembly speaker’s decision to drop the disqualification proceedings against the AIADMK MLAs, who have cross-voted in favour of TVK, based on the condonation provided by the party’s general secretary. The first bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan dismissed the petition filed by advocate P V Selvakumar, a voter of Tiruttani constituency. The counsel for the petitioner, Sakthivel, alleged that the concerned MLAs cannot be condoned because they have already violated the whip issued by the party and cross-voted. He prayed for the court to quash the DO letter issued by the Assembly secretary on June 9, 2026, under the instructions of the speaker to drop the disqualification proceedings, and also sought a direction to the speaker to revive such proceedings and independently determine whether the condonation was valid. The bench wondered to know what was wrong in the speaker accepting the condonation and dropping the disqualification when the party leader had condoned the act of the MLAs within the stipulated 15 days. The counsel replied that they have made a mockery of democracy and caused public injury and so, the speaker cannot automatically drop the disqualification proceedings initiated under Paragraph 2 (1) (a) and 2 (1) (b) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution only because the party changes its mind.