PIL in Supreme Court seeks CBI probe into Vijay's TVK trust vote win

A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed before the Supreme Court alleging irregularities and corruption in the Tamil Nadu Assembly trust vote held on May 13 in which Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), led by current Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, emerged victorious [KK Ramesh v. Union of India]

The petition filed by Madurai resident KK Ramesh has sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the same.

Ramesh has also sought a direction for imposition of President's rule in Tamil Nadu until the investigation is completed.

The Union of India, CBI and the State of Tamil Nadu have been made parties to the petition.

According to the petition, the TVK emerged as the single largest party in the recently concluded Tamil Nadu Assembly elections but did not have the sufficient numbers on its own in the assembly to form a stable government.

Tamil Nadu has 234 Assembly seats and any party or alliance requires the support of at least 118 MLAs to form the government. Vijay secured the support of 144 MLAs and won the trust vote on May 13.

As per the plea, TVK had only 108 seats and was short of the majority mark before securing support from other parties and factions.

TVK received support from Congress, CPI, CPI(M), VCK, IUML, a faction of rebel AIADMK legislators and the lone AMMK MLA. The petitioner has alleged that MLAs from other parties were involved in horse-trading and that “huge amounts of money” were allegedly handed over to certain MLAs by TVK.

“Some MLAs from other parties did not join the particular government but violated the party whip direction for money and other benefits,” the plea states.

The petition has further alleged that compromises were made, large sums of money were distributed to MLAs and the floor test was not conducted in accordance with democratic principles.

“The entire events were illegal and not part of a proper democratic movement. Therefore, the Assembly should be dissolved, and the matter should be handed over to the CBI for a full investigation,” the petition states.

The plea has also referred to the split within the AIADMK during the trust vote. 25 AIADMK MLAs led by C Ve Shanmugam and SP Velumani voted in favour of the TVK government, while 22 MLAs loyal to AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami voted against the confidence motion.

The petition states that rival AIADMK factions have since approached Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker JCD Prabhakar seeking disqualification of each other’s MLAs under the anti-defection law.

After the 91st Constitutional Amendment, a split in a party is no longer protected and at least two-thirds of legislators are required for a valid merger with another party, the plea states.

The petitioner has claimed that his fundamental rights and those of his family members have been violated since they are permanent residents and voters in Tamil Nadu.

The petition was filed through Advocate Narender Kumar Verma.