The Madras High Court on Saturday said it will soon deliver a judgement on the disqualification of 18 AIADMK legislators owing allegiance to sidelined party leader TTV Dinakaran.
Hearing a petition filed by city-based advocate, Chief Justice Indira Banerjee said the court is not bothered about criticism.
Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal had disqualified 18 legislators after they wrote to the Governor to express loss of confidence in Chief Minister K. Palaniswami and requested him to appoint a new Chief Minister.
The case filed by the disqualified legislators against the Speaker's action is pending before the High Court.
This also comes days after the High Court dismissed a petition seeking disqualification of 11 AIADMK legislators, including Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, for voting against the government during a confidence motion moved by Chief Minister K Palaniswami last year.
At that time, Panneerselvam had rebelled against the party led by jailed leader VK Sasikala. Later, Panneerselvam merged his group with the one led by Palaniswami who sidelined Sasikala and her relative TTV Dinakaran.
Dismissing the petition filed by DMK Whip R. Sakkrapani, the court said it could not interfere in the Assembly Speaker's domain.
The court said it had the power of judicial review of decisions taken, but could not interfere in a matter where the Speaker had not taken a decision.
It also referred to a case pending in the Supreme Court on a similar issue arising from Andhra Pradesh.
Welcoming the judgement earlier this week, K. Pandiarajan, the Minister for Tamil Official Language and Tamil Culture, said the court's decision was validation of Tamil Nadu Speaker's decision.
He said the opposition parties might be disappointed but it would give them clarity as to what kind of cases could be filed in the courts.
As per the party position in Tamil Nadu assembly, the ruling AIADMK has 116 members followed by DMK-89, Congress-8, IUML-1, Independent-1, the Speaker and 18 vacant seats, totalling 234. Besides, there is one nominated member without voting right.