The Madras High Court has refused to issue a direction to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker and Assembly Secretary to initiate disqualification proceedings against all 25 AIADMK rebel MLAs who had voted in favour of the vote of confidence moved by Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay on May 13, 2026.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan also refused to quash a decision taken by Speaker J.C.D. Prabhakar to drop the disqualification proceedings against 21 out of the 25 MLAs following a request made by AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami.

The Bench dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by advocate P.V. Selvakumar of Tiruvallur district and concurred with Advocate General Vijay Narayan that the petitioner, being a third party, had no locus standi whatsoever to interfere with the internal affairs of the AIADMK.

The petitioner had contended that Mr. Palaniswami had given a representation to the Speaker on May 13, 2026, seeking the initiation of disqualification proceedings against all 25 MLAs not only under paragraph 2(1)(b) but also under paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution.

While paragraph 2(1)(b) was related to voting against the whip issued by the political party to which an MLA belongs and also provides for condoning such act by the party within 15 days of the voting, paragaraph 2(1)(a) was related to voluntarily giving up membership of a party, he pointed out.

Since Mr. Palaniswami had insisted upon the initiation of disqualification proceedings against paragraph 2(1)(a) too, the Speaker ought not to have accepted the party general secretary’s May 27, 2026 request to drop the proceedings against 21 MLAs, the litigant’s counsel K. Sakthivel argued.

However, rejecting the argument, the Division Bench said, the AIADMK general secretary had sought action under paragraph 2(1)(a) too on the ground that voting in defiance of a whip amounted to voluntarily giving up membership of the party and therefore, the party leader was entitled to condone such act too within 15 days.

“Since the political party had subsequently condoned such voting by the 21 members, the contention that disqualification by conduct under Paragraph 2(1)(a) would survive against those members is totally baseless and misplaced,” Justice Arul Murugan wrote on behalf of the Bench.

“The moment the general secretary of the political party submitted a letter dated May 27, 2026, to the Speaker condoning the act of the 21 members, the question of their disqualification either under Paragraph 2(1)(a) or 2(1)(b) does not arise and the Speaker rightly dropped the disqualification proceedings,” the judges concluded.

Published - August 20, 2026 04:30 pm IST