HC reserves verdict on plea to declare illegal the nomination of three MLAs to Puducherry Assembly

The Madras High Court on Thursday reserved its judgement on a public curiosity litigation petition to declare illegal, a notification issued by the Union Home Ministry on May 10 nominating three MLAs to the Puducherry Legislative Assembly.

Justices Anita Sumanth and Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy deferred their verdict after listening to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for the Union Home Ministry, advocate M. Gnanasekar for the PIL petitioner G.A. Jagaannathan and advocate V. Raghavachari for 2 of the nominated MLAs.

The petitioner’s counsel had contended that the credentials of the three people nominated by the Centre have been questionable although the nominated MLAs must be males of eminence. He additionally questioned the hurry with which the nominations had been made even earlier than the elected MLAs might be sworn in.

However, the Solicitor General introduced it to the discover of the court docket that there was just one unfavourable covenant in the regulation in opposition to the nomination of MLAs to the Puducherry Assembly and that covenant states that the nominee shouldn’t be a authorities servant.

Since none of the three nominees have been authorities servants, there was no bar in nominating them to the Assembly, he mentioned. Mr. Mehta additionally relied upon just a few Supreme Court judgements and contended that the MLAs might be nominated even earlier than the formation of the authorities in the union territory.

A lawyer, representing the third nominated MLA, accused the PIL petitioner of having tarnished his picture by questioning his credentials and publicising it in the media. He mentioned the court docket mustn’t permit the litigant to elevate such baseless points.