When Madras High Court was approached ‘in the absence’ of a Council of Ministers

The public curiosity in AIADMK founder and former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran (1917-87) has not diminished despite the passage of over 35 years since his death. Recently, on a social media platform, a former journalist-cum-Tamil writer spoke about the speculation said to have done the rounds in the middle of 1987 regarding the consideration of MGR’s name for President as the term of Zail Singh would come to an end in July that year.

However, former Minister for Electricity Panruti S. Ramachandran, who was ranked number 3 in the MGR Cabinet, and former IAS officer T. Pitchandi, who worked at the Chief Minister’s Office for nine years during his reign, emphasise that there was no such talk at all.

“MGR wanted to continue only as Chief Minister,” is what the former Minister says. In October 1981, when English periodical India Today asked MGR whether he fancied himself becoming the Prime Minister one day, his reply was: “Instead, you should ask me: how long do you think you will continue as the Chief Minister?” However, both Mr. Panruti Ramachandran and Mr. Pitchandi recall a number of legal battles that the MGR government had to face ever since he had led his party to a convincing victory in the December 1984 Assembly election, despite being hospitalised in the United States.

Dramatic return

Five days after his dramatic return to Chennai from the U.S. subsequent to the three-month hospitalisation, the AIADMK leader was sworn in as the Chief Minister on February 10, 1985, amid the select audience that included M.N. Chandurkar, Chief Justice of the Madras High Court; K. Rajaram, Speaker of the Assembly; M.P. Sivagnanam, Chairman of the Legislative Council; and M. Thambi Durai, Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha. The event itself was a departure from the past practices as representatives of the Press were not permitted to cover it. Only cameramen and photographers of Doordarshan, Films Division, and the government were allowed.

By the time MGR became the Chief Minister again, an election petition was filed against his victory in Andipatti, now in Theni district. The DMK-backed Forward Bloc nominee, P.N. Vallarasu, who lost to MGR by about 32,450 votes, challenged the Chief Minister’s election in the Madras High Court. A couple of days after MGR was sworn in as the Chief Minister for the third time, a voter in the constituency moved the High Court against him. The main ground cited by the petitioners was that at the time of filing of nomination, when a candidate was confined to bed at a hospital, as happened in the case of MGR at Brooklyn Hospital in New York, the candidate’s oath or affirmation should have been taken before a medical practitioner, and not before a consular agent. The petitioners cited a telex message sent by the Election Commission in support of their point.

When MGR’s lawyers and followers were scrutinising the petitions came a writ petition filed by ‘Misa’ R. Ganesan, a veteran functionary of the DMK and a serving Member of the Legislative Council (a body that was abolished with effect from November 1986), questioning on what authority Governor S.L. Khurana continued to hold the office when he had failed to discharge the constitutional obligations. The petitioner’s contention was that there had been no “Council of Ministers” since February 10 to aid and advise him. Simultaneously, five DMK MPs, including Murasoli Maran and Vaiko (now the MDMK general secretary), in a joint telegram to President Zail Singh, complained that Khurana had violated the mandatory provisions of the Constitution by appointing the Chief Minister alone and not the Council of Ministers as required under Article 163(1).

Around 8 a.m. on February 14, Advocate-General R. Krishnamoorthy informed Mr. Pitchandi that the court might take up Ganesan’s writ of quo warranto in the morning and urged him to take immediate steps, the former civil servant recalls in his memoir, Enakkul Manakkum MGR Ninaivugal. Even as Krishnamoorthy got the consent of the Governor’s office for inducting two persons as Ministers by 10.30 a.m. that day, the Chief Minister’s aide alerted MGR to the case and the likely political and legal crisis that the government had to face in the absence of any immediate action.

Two Ministers sworn in

Sensing the urgency, the Chief Minister conveyed his decision to include V.R. Nedunchezhiyan and Mr. Panruti Ramachandran in the Cabinet first. By 10 a.m., the two senior leaders rushed to the Raj Bhavan where Khurana had sworn them in. The same day, the appointment of 14 other Ministers was made. When the case came up before the High Court around 11 a.m. that day, the Advocate-General informed that two persons [other than the Chief Minister] had taken charge as Ministers.

The matter did not end here. S.J. Sadiq Pasha, the DMK’s treasurer and former Minister, and R.R. Dalavai, convener, Civil Liberties Council, approached the court against the decisions taken by MGR during the period from February 10 to 14 “in the guise of a constitutionally constituted Cabinet or a Council of Ministers”. However, the court did not entertain the cases, as in the case of Ganesan’s writ petition. It held that “framers of the Constitution were aware that in a democratic system, the leader of the majority party in the legislature would necessarily require some time before he submitted a list of persons who formed his Council of Ministers,” reported The Hindu on April 25, 1985.

A Bench, comprising Chandurkar and Justice T. Sathiadev, concluded that the concept of collective responsibility in the States was embodied in Article 164(2). When the Article declared that a Council of Ministers “shall be collectively responsible to the Legislature”, it did not mean each decision should be taken by the Cabinet. If a decision was taken by an official, empowered under the Business Rules to deal with certain subjects, it would, in fact, be a decision of the government.

Petitions quashed

In December 1986, the High Court quashed the petitions against MGR’s election. Justice S. Mohan, who later became a Supreme Court judge, ruled that the affirmation made by the Chief Minister before the consular agent in New York complied with the notification of the Election Commission and fulfilled the requirement of law. When one more quo warranto was filed against MGR after his call to his fans to carry knives for self-defence on the ground that he had acted against the Constitution, the High Court, in August 1986, dismissed it, saying the argument of the petitioner proceeded from the misconception of the nature of quo warranto.