Chennai, August 20
The Madras High Court has rejected a petition seeking the disqualification of 25 rebel AIADMK legislators who voted in favour of the confidence motion 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 Speaker J.C.D. Prabhakar’s decision to drop proceedings against 21 of the MLAs after AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami condoned their conduct.
The court dismissed a public interest litigation filed by Tiruvallur-based advocate P.V. Selvakumar. It accepted Advocate General Vijay Narayan’s argument that the petitioner was a third party with no legal standing to interfere in the AIADMK’s internal affairs.
The petitioner said Mr. Palaniswami had initially sought the disqualification of all 25 MLAs under Paragraphs 2(1)(a) and 2(1)(b) of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution.
Paragraph 2(1)(a) deals with legislators voluntarily giving up their party membership, while Paragraph 2(1)(b) applies to those who vote or abstain from voting against the party’s direction. A political party can condone such defiance within 15 days.
Counsel K. Sakthivel argued that since the AIADMK leader had sought action under both provisions, the Speaker should not have accepted his May 27 request to close the proceedings against 21 MLAs.
Rejecting the contention, the Bench said the allegation of voluntarily giving up party membership was also based on the legislators’ defiance of the party whip.
Justice Arul Murugan, writing for the Bench, said the party’s subsequent decision to condone the voting meant that no ground for disqualification survived under either provision.
The judges concluded that the Speaker had correctly dropped the proceedings after receiving the AIADMK general secretary’s letter condoning the conduct of the 21 legislators. Describing the petitioner’s contention as baseless and misplaced, the court dismissed the PIL.
