SC asks Puducherry Assembly Speaker to allow nominated BJP MLAs to function
New Delhi, July 19: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Speaker of Puducherry Assembly to allow the three nominated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs to participate in the Assembly proceedings, and sought the Centre's response to pleas challenging their nomination.
A bench of Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan asked the Centre and Puducherry governments to file their responses to the pleas of Congress leaders in Puducherry and posted the matter for August 28.
"It needs consideration. These are pure legal questions... We expect the Speaker of the Assembly to allow MLAs to function till the petitions are adjudicated," said the bench while refusing to stay the Madras High Court judgement which had upheld the nominations of the three BJP members.
The issue of the Centre "unilaterally" appointing the three MLAs without the consultation of the elected government in the Union Territory requires authoritative pronouncement, the bench said.
The Union Home Ministry had appointed BJP Puducherry unit chief V. Saminathan, its treasurer K.G. Shankar, and educationist S. Selva Ganapathy to the Assembly in June 2017, and they were inducted as nominated MLAs by Lt. Governor Kiran Bedi on July 4, 2017.
However, Assembly Speaker V. Vaithilingam had refused to recognize their appointment, saying they were not nominated by competent authority. He had denied them permission to enter the Assembly, in spite of the Madras High Court order upholding their nomination.
Congress MLAs K. Lakshminarayanan and S. Dhanalakshmi have approached the apex court against the Madras High Court order of upholding the nomination of BJP MLAs.
During the hearing, the top court said the administrator is a representative of the central government in the Union Territory and "a delegatee of the Centre, which does not mean that the delegator cannot exercise power at its own discretion."
Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, contended that Puducherry is a territory of the Union of India which has no autonomy and "it's the Central government, which exercises control through its representative or administrator."
Every union territory shall be administered through the President and its delegatee, who can be administrator or the Lt. Governor, he added while defending Centre's move to appoint three BJP MLAs in the Assembly without consulting Chief Minister or council of ministers.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the Congress leaders in the apex court, contended that the nominations were made by the Centre to the Puducherry Legislative Assembly without taking Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy into confidence and obtaining his recommendations.
"We are under the federal structure of governance and there is a concept of co-operative federal structures. Despite the Constitutional scheme and there being an elected government in the Union Territory can the central government nominate members to the Assembly without consultation?" he asked.
Sibal said there are constitutional issues and complicated questions that need to be adjudicated at the earliest and it should be dealt by the Constitution bench.
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TN youth from UAE has tested negative for Mpox: Health Minister Subramanian
Chennai, Nov 2: A 27-year-old native of Thiruvarur district, who had arrived from Sharjah, has tested negative for monkey pox, Health Minister Ma Subramanian said here on Saturday.
Test results from both the King Institute of Preventive Medicine and Research here and the Pune-based National Institute of Virology have show negative for Mpox virus, the minister said.
Subramanian had earlier in the day told reporters that result was awaited for the sample that had been dispatched to the NIV while test result from King Institute ruled out monkey pox.
On October 31, upon his arrival at Tiruchirappalli airport from the UAE, during screening, the young man displayed fever symptoms and small skin lesions. Hence, he was taken to a government hospital.
Subramanian said the returnee had been frightened and hence left for his hometown of Valangaiman in Thiruvarur district. "This treatment is for his good and in order to prevent the spread of infection," the minister said.
Hence, he was brought back to the hospital by the authorities with police help and he has been receiving good treatment at the state-run facility. Further, Subramanian said that the test result from the government-run King Institute indicated Chickenpox and marked negative for presence of Mpox.
Screening at airports for passengers arriving from foreign countries is going on continuously in the state and international airports have dedicated isolated rooms.
Special wards are ready in government medical college hospitals, including those in Chennai and Tiruchirappalli, to provide treatment for Mpox, in case anyone tests positive for the infection, the minister added.
