Chennai:Grilling the petitioners, who sought a direction to unseat Senthil Balaji, continuing as a minister without portfolio despite his arrest by the ED, the Madras High Court on Monday made it clear that it cannot pass any such order in the absence of a specific direction from the Governor.
Hearing two petitions with a similar prayer, Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala, heading the Bench comprising Justice PD Audikesavulu, asked whether there was any constitutional provision, which empowers the Governor to dismiss a minister and whether such an explicit order has been passed by the Raj Bhavan. He also told the counsel for the petitioner that it was on the advice of the Chief Minister that the Governor had appointed the minister as per Article 164(1) of the constitution. The Chief Justice's intervention came when the counsel relied upon Article 164 of the constitution, arguing that a minister can continue in office only at the pleasure of the Governor.
The Bench was hearing the petitions filed by ML Ravi of Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi and S Ramachandran of Kolathur, a suburb of Chennai. The petitioners have challenged the Executive Order of the Government, re-allocating the portfolios held by Balaji to Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu and Housing Minister S Muthusamy while keeping him as a Minister without a portfolio.
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One of the counsels for the petitioners submitted that Governor RN Ravi had made his dissent known over the continuation of the minister consequent to his arrest and remand. In support, he told the Bench that the Raj Bhavan had released a press note clearly indicating the Governor's disagreement with Balaji being a minister. At this, the Chief Justice said, “Has the Governor set aside his appointment as a minister? Under what powers a Governor can remove a minister? There is a distinction between not agreeing with his continuation in the Cabinet and passing a positive order against his continuation.” Asking whether any such order has been passed, the CJ wanted to know whether the Chief Minister had made a specific request to the Governor to allow Balaji to continue in the Cabinet.
“Place before the court, if there is any such request,” the CJ said and granted time till afternoon. When the hearing resumed, the petitioners expressed their inability to produce the correspondence between the Chief Minister and the Raj Bhavan, since they are confidential. At this, the CJ wondered, “How can the court pass orders under Article 226 of the constitution when there are no specific orders to remove him by the Governor.” The Bench also wanted to ascertain whether the Governor had the powers to do so and posted the matter to July 7.
The Quo Warranto petition filed by AIADMK former MP J Jayavardhan questioning the validity of Balaji's continuation in the ministry has also been clubbed with the earlier two petitions and will be heard on July 7. Meanwhile, as the Habeas Corpus petition of Balaji's wife Megala, is coming for hearing tomorrow, she has filed an additional affidavit submitting that the ED does not have the mandate to seek the assistance of CRPF while her husband was arrested on June 14. It is also not the duty of the CRPF, as its role was to aid the civil power.
The CRPF cannot exercise the powers of the state police and there was no request from the state police. Hence, it has vitiated the entire detention of Balaji, who was not produced before the jurisdictional court within 24 hours, a violation of Section 19 of the PMLA Act. Reiterating that the ED not being the police could not seek custody, the affidavit also argued that the order of judicial custody passed by the Principal Sessions Judge was mechanical and illegal for not considering Section 50 of CrPC and Article 22(1) of the Constitution.
