On August 22, 2017, as many as 19 AIADMK MLAs, owing allegiance to MLA T.T.V. Dinakaran, met Governor Vidayasagar Rao and handed over individual letters stating that they had lost confidence in Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami. The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker, P. Dhanapal, disqualified 18 of the 19 MLAs on September 18, 2017, following a complaint from the AIADMK party Whip. The 18 MLAs approached the Madras High Court seeking relief. They had pointed out that in an earlier case, Deputy Chief Minister, O. Panneerselvam, and 11 MLAs had voted against the government in the floor of the House, and the Speaker did not take any action against any of them. In this instance, they had not violated a party whip, and had not voted against the government. A two-judge Division Bench which heard the case, delivered a split verdict, and the 18MLAs approached the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court transferred the case to the 'tie-breaker' judge at the Madras High Court, who delivered a 475-page order on October 25, upholding the disqualfiication. Justice M. Satyanarayanan's order upholding the disqualification of 18 MLAs [PDF 1.79 MB] Source: Supreme Court of India The Madras High Court Division Bench order of June 14, 2018, which delivered a split verdict on the disqualification of 18 MLAs [PDF 1.64 MB] Source: Supreme Court of India OPS MLAs disqualification judgement [PDF 346 KB] Source: Supreme Court of India
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