Madras HC: PIL on MLA assets dismissed

The Madras High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition at the admission stage, seeking a direction to the Tamil Nadu Assembly to take steps for making its MLAs declare their assets. 



The petitioner, V Madhav, an engineer and Right to Information (RTI) activist, said the Assembly had unanimously adopted a resolution in August 1969 to declare assets and update their status every 12 months. 



Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, who was the force behind the resolution, filed his declarations for about 20 years, till 1989. 



Citing the Assembly secretariat’s response to RTI inquiries, Mr Madhav said only a handful of MLAs declared assets during the past 40 years. 



His counsel Krishna Ananth submitted that though candidates contesting elections are mandated to declare their asset particulars, there is no mechanism to ascertain as to what was their wealth status after they became MLAs. 



The petitioner, on his part, pointed out that members of the executive were already declaring their asset particulars and that the judiciary too was in the process of making the details public. 



‘The resolution of the Assembly was passed unanimously and was later added to the practice and procedure of the Assembly. This clearly showed that the intent of the resolution was to make it mandatory for MLAs to disclose their assets annually,’ he said. 



While dismissing the petition, the First Bench comprising Chief Justice H L Gokhale and Justice D Murugesan said the Assembly had resolved that the Central Government be requested to bring forward a legislation for declaration of assets. 



‘Such an enactment has not been passed by the Government of India. That being the position, as of now, the resolution remains a ‘resolve’ of the MLAs. ‘It remains in the nature of a voluntary decision of the members. It des not have the force of law, which can be enforced by invoking Article 226 of the Constitution, and by issuing a writ of mandamus.’ Concurring with the Government Pleader’s submissions, the Bench further said the validity of the legislative proceedings cannot be called in question on any ground of alleged irregularity of procedure. 



Since the resolution has not taken the shape of an enactment, no writ can be issued, the judges said.