1. Madras HC Upholds Disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs
Justice M Sathyanarayanan, the Supreme Court-appointed third judge of the Madras High Court, on Thursday upheld the validity of an order passed by Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal on 18 September 2017, disqualifying 18 AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to sidelined leader TTV Dhinakaran under the anti-defection law.
His decision solves the conundrum caused by a split verdict delivered on 14 June with the then Chief Justice Indira Banerjee (now a Supreme Court judge) upholding the Speaker’s order and her companion judge, Justice M Sundar, setting it aside on multiple grounds including perversity, malafide and non compliance of principles of natural justice.
(Source: The Hindu)
2. Taxmen Conduct Searches at 100 Locations of Mining Firm
The Income Tax (IT) Department on Thursday conducted simultaneous searches on various premises belonging to leading mining firm VV Minerals, owned by Thoothukudi based baron S Vaikundarajan, suspecting a huge tax evasion. The taxmen searched over 100 locations across Tamil Nadu and a few places in Andhra Pradesh.
A senior official of Investigations Wing said houses, offices and factories belonging to the group and its associates were being searched.
A news channel owned by the group (News 7 Tamil) headquartered out of Chennai was also under the I-T radar. The tax sleuths said they would be able to give details only after the searches were concluded. “If necessary the searches would continue on Friday too,” an I-T official said.
(Source: The Hindu)
3. Amid #MeToo, Madras Music Academy Drops 7 Artists From Margazhi
Following several disturbing sexual harassment allegations that surfaced against prominent names in the Carnatic music community in the past couple of weeks, the Madras Music Academy announced its decision to drop seven musicians from their list of performers this December season.
The seven artistes include season regulars like N Ravikiran, OS Thyagarajan, Mannargudi A Easwaran, Srimushnam V Raja Rao, Nagai Sriram, R Ramesh and Thiruvarur Vaidyanathan.
N Murali, the President of the Academy said that their decision was a direct result of the ‘Me Too’ movement.
(Read more on The Quint)
4. EC May Take Its Time to Hold Bypolls
The Election Commission (EC) may not be in a hurry to hold bye-elections to 18 Assembly consituencies, for which the bar on holding by-polls has been lifted with the Madras High Court’s latest verdict.
This could be gauged from observations of Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat on Wednesday who referred to the stipulation of holding the bye-elections within a period of six months, as mandated by Section 151A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. “The Commission will see it from that angle,” he told the media in New Delhi.
Asked whether the EC would prefer to wait for any of the affected former legislators to file an appeal in the Supreme Court, Satyabrata Sahoo, Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer, said he had not yet seen the copy of the High Court’s judgment. He added that “we will get to know from the Assembly Secretariat [on the situation] and inform the Election Commission.”
(Source: The Hindu)
5. Ban on Plastic Will Leave 2 Lakh Jobless: Association
The state government’s decision to ban plastics will lead to loss of livelihood for two lakh persons directly employed by plastic manufacturing companies, said G Sankaran, president of Tamil Nadu, Pondy Plastic Association.
Speaking to mediapersons on Thursday, he said civic agencies such as the Chennai Corporation failed to implement scientific waste management practices to process plastic waste.
“The plastics used in packaging food products of MNCs has not been banned. Such plastics will reach dump yards in cities such as Chennai. The government should consider other options of scientific management of plastic waste. They should not ban plastics without understanding the problems faced by the industry,” said Sankaran.
(Source: The Hindu)
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