more-in The Madras High Court on Wednesday ordered that any major decision taken in the Puducherry Legislative Assembly’s winter session scheduled to begin from Thursday shall be subject to further orders to be passed by the court in a batch of cases filed both in favour of and against the nomination of three members to the Assembly by the Centre. Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar made it clear that the interim order was passed due to paucity of time since a battery of senior counsel representing the Centre, the Assembly Secretary, the three nominees and the petitioners who had challenged the nominations had argued the case for the entire day and yet did not complete their submissions. The Madras High Court permitted senior counsel P.H. Arvindh Pandian, appearing for one of the three nominees, to continue his arguments on Thursday and senior counsel AR. L. Sundaresan to make his submissions, on behalf of the Assembly Secretary, on Friday. The three nominees had filed individual writ petitions challenging the Speaker’s decision to reject their nominations. Bharatiya Janata Party Puducherry unit chief V. Saminathan, its treasurer K.G. Shankar, and educationist S. Selva Ganapathy had been nominated to the Assembly by the Union Home Ministry through a gazette notification on July 4. A counter affidavit filed by the Centre in the court did not state that it was the Lieutenant Governor who had recommended the three names. ‘Centre’s prerogative’ Contending that such nominations were the prerogative of the Centre and the President, senior counsel P.R. Raman, appearing for Mr. Saminathan, said the applications for nomination of MLAs could not be called through newspaper advertisements. Pointing out that any resident of Puducherry, who is aged 25 and did not hold a government post, could be nominated to the Assembly, the senior counsel questioned the authority of the Speaker to either accept or reject the nominations. duly made by the Centre by exercising the powers conferred on it under the Constitution. “Does the Constitution require the Speaker to accept the nomination? Who is he to accept or reject? The Speaker lacks constitutional power to pass an order [refusing to accept the nominations] of this nature. The only adjudicatory power vested on the Speaker is under the tenth schedule [provisions to disqualify MLAs for defection] of the Constitution. “Otherwise, his powers are only within the House. He does not have any other power. Yet, the Speaker says I am keeping it [the three nominations made by the Centre] void ab initio. This is nothing but constitutional overreach,” Mr. Raman said. Intervening during the arguments, Puducherry government pleader A. Gandhirajan, also a former Minister, said it was incumbent upon the elected MLAs to produce certificates issued by the Returning Officers to the Speaker and sign in the register concerned before beginning to attend the Assembly sessions. To this, he said that even nominated MLAs should produce certificates to the Speaker. Mr. Raman wanted to know if the Puducherry government was willing to give an undertaking before the court to accommodate the three nominees if they produced certificates of nomination. However, Mr. Gandhirajan replied: “The certificates should not be obtained from the Union Home Ministry. They should be obtained from the President. It is His Excellency the President who administers the Union Territory.” Irked over such submission, Mr. Raman wondered whether any nominated MLA in the past had submitted such a certificate. “The Assembly Secretary is present in this court. Ask him to produce certificates issued by the President to any of the 15 MLAs who had been nominated to the Assembly since 1985. If they produce even one certificate, I will walk out of this court,” the senior counsel said. Earlier, Additional Solicitor General G. Rajagopalan submitted that the Centre was fully empowered to nominate members to the Assembly and there was no compulsion under law to obtain recommendations from the Council of Ministers in the Union Territory.

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