The Madras High Court on Thursday closed a batch of writ appeals filed in 2020 by the then Tamil Nadu Assembly Secretary and the Privileges Committee against an interim stay order passed by a single judge in September that year against the breach of privilege proceedings initiated against then Leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin (incumbent Chief Minister) and 17 other DMK legislators for having displayed Gutkha sachets in the Assembly in 2017.
Justices D. Krishnakumar and P. Dhanabal closed the appeals after Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran represented that the issue had become infructuous as the appellants were not interested in pursuing the appeals. After the filing of the appeals in 2020, the single judge had allowed the writ petitions filed by all 18 legislators and passed final orders in 2021 quashing the entire privilege proceedings initiated against them.
Though separate appeals were filed in 2021 against the final orders, those appeals were not listed before the Division Bench on Thursday. However, the AAG told the court that the appellants were not interested in proceeding with the privilege proceedings and therefore nothing was left to be adjudicate in the appeals.
