Is MLA a profession? Supreme Court to check
The notice was returnable in two weeks
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday decided to examine whether in politics the post of MLA is a profession and suspension to participate in Assembly proceedings will violate the right to discharge his constitutional obligation.
A bench of justices J. Chelameswar and A.M. Sapre issued notice to Tamil Nadu Assembly Secretary on a writ petition filed by six DMDK MLAs — A. Mohanraj, V.C. Chandira Kumar, L.Venkatesan, C.H. Sekar, K. Dinakaran and S.R. Parthiban. suspended by a resolution on March 30. The notice was returnable in two weeks.
Appearing for the petitioners, senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan submitted that the MLAs were initially suspended for interrupting the Governor’s speech and allegedly attacking the Speaker on February 19.
Subsequently, the House passed a resolution on March 30 suspending them till the first 10 days of the 2016 session. The official residences allotted to the petitioners, like any other MLAs, were closed, locked and sealed, none of the privileges or payments was issued to them. The petitioners waited so far, hoping that some kind of order would be issued on them, but, till the date of filing of this writ petition, no order has been issued.
As a consequence of the resolution, they were deprived of their pay, compensatory allowance, telephone allowance, constituency allowance, postal allowance, consolidated allowance etc. They cannot act as a representative of their constituency, the counsel said
Mr Dhavan pointed out that by suspending them the right of the MLAs to represent the people of their constituencies had been infringed and this would amount to violation of the right to profession guaranteed under the Constitution.
When the Bench pointed out that being an MLA is only a statutory right and not a fundamental right, the counsel said by keeping the MLAs away from work was violative of their right to profession. Pointing that there was no case in law so far on this issue, he wanted the court examine the same and the court agreed to do so.