The Supreme Court has ordered Justice M Sathyanarayanan to be the third judge in the AIADMK 18 MLA’s disqualification case. He will replace Justice S Vimala, who was earlier appointed by the Madras High Court.
This move came after the MLAs who were disqualified moved the SC seeking the transfer of the case to the apex court. The case was heard by a bench comprising Justice Arun Kumar Mishra and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul.
The disqualified MLAs submitted that the Madras HC has taken 6 months after hearing the case to deliver the judgement and that they fear that the third judge might also take a long time to deliver her verdict. Hence, they had moved the top court to transfer the case from the Madras HC.
The SC, in response, said that the HC had given its judgement in 4.5 months from the date of hearing the arguments and that the information provided by the petitioner is wrong. The SC also said that accusing a judge based on wrong information is improper and hence asked the petitioners to withdraw that statement from their petition, which was accepted by the petitioners.
The petitioners had also informed the SC about their concerns with Justice S Vimala being appointed as the third judge and had requested the apex court to intervene since they felt they will not get justice if the case is heard by her. The SC, in its response to this, said that it accepts the concerns of the petitioner and hence ordered that Madras HC Judge M Sathyanarayanan be appointed as the third judge in this case.
Justice M Sathyanarayanan was appointed as an additional judge of the Madras High Court in 2008 and was made a permanent judge in 2009.
The SC also said that it cannot stay the disqualification or impose any time limit for the announcement of the verdict of the third judge.
TN Assembly Speaker Dhanapal disqualified 18 MLAs who were a part of the TTV Dinakaran faction of the AIADMK in September 2017. Thanga Tamilselvan, one of the 18 MLAs, is not part of the petition submitted at SC. This brought down the number of MLAs disqualified to 17.
The Madras HC delivered a split verdict on the case on June 14 and ordered that a third judge would deliver the deciding verdict in the case.