The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Notice to AIADMK MPs: plea referred to larger bench

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 20, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Notice to AIADMK MPs: plea referred to larger bench

Special Correspondent

The matter involves issues requiring constitutional interpretation, says judge

CHENNAI: A writ petition, challenging the notice issued by the Advocate-General of Tamil Nadu to 12 MPs of the AIADMK, has been referred to a larger bench of the court as the matter involved issues requiring constitutional interpretation.

Advocate-General R. Viduthalai issued notices on an application seeking his consent to initiate contempt of court proceedings against the MPs for having cast “deliberate aspersions” on a judge of the court in their representation to the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption on May 2.

He had asked the MPs to reply to the notice on or before June 20.

On Tuesday, a petition filed by one of the recipients of the notice, N. Jothi, came up for admission before Justice V. Dhanapalan.

Petitioner’s contention

The petitioner contended that there was no intentional obstruction of courts of justice on the part of the MPs and that the notice was unwarranted.

He sought the quashing of the notice.

After hearing the submissions of Mr. Jothi and Assistant Solicitor-General P. Wilson, the Judge framed three issues and said the matter required to be dealt with by a Division Bench.

He then referred it to the Chief Justice for constituting a Bench to hear the case. Mr. Justice Dhanapalan also directed the Registry to post the matter immediately in view of the urgency involved.

Three issues

The Judge has framed three issues — the rights of the Members of Parliament in respect of Freedom of Expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, the rights of the Members of the Parliament in respect of making report to an authority of the State, in respect of a decision rendered by a judge of the High Court or a subordinate court and the power of the Advocate-General in issuing notice against the Members of the Parliament calling for their appearance in contempt proceedings.

Besides the petitioner, notice has been issued to P.G. Narayanan, T.T.V. Dinakaran, K. Malaisamy, Thanga Tamil Selvan, Gokula Indira, S.S. Chandran, S.P.M. Syed Khan, C. Perumal, R. Kamaraj, S. Anbalagan and N.R. Govindarajan.

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