Vijayakant plea against house action thrown out

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has thrown out DMDK leader Vijayakant’s writ petition challenging a resolution of the State Assembly dated February 2, suspending him from participating in the proceedings for 10 days. “None of the contentions raised by the petitioner are acceptable,” Justice V Ramasubramanian said and dismissed Vijayakant’s petition, on Thursday.The main contentions of Vijayakant, also Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, were that the report of the Privileges Committee was not  furnished to all the members of the Assembly, the suspension could not continue over two sessions (present and the future) and that the proceedings would result in a stalemate in the absence of the Leader of the Opposition. The non-furnishing of the copies of the report of the Committee to all the members did not vitiate the resolution. Therefore, it could not lead to an allegation of malafide exercise of power. The Assembly had a membership of 234 and the resolution had been passed by a simple majority as required by the Rules.Therefore, no allegation of malafide could be made against a body comprising of huge number of members, the judge observed. As regards the second contention, the judge observed that suspension was less serious than expulsion. “Therefore, once it is accepted that the House has the power even to expel a member, then it follows as a corollary that suspension spilling over two sessions is also permissible.” Moreover, the collective wisdom of the House as a whole, superseded the wisdom of the electorate of the constituency in such cases. Therefore, this contention could not be accepted, the judge said.With regard to the third contention, he said that the Constitution did not recognise post of the Leader of the Opposition. It recognised the office of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, but not the office of Leader of the Opposition.The Assembly Rules did not confer any extra privilege upon a person recognised as the Leader of the Opposition. Other than being entitled to be a member of the Privileges Committee, no other privilege appears to have been cconferred by the Rules, the judge observed and dismissed the petition.